The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-06-17 00:00:00

FROZEN FRESH MEAT FROM NEW

SOUTH WALES.

Mr. It D Adams writes to The Times under date Sydney,
New South W.iles, February 28 :

"The growth of meat in Australia is so much
greater than the requirements of the population that
the pastoral tenants have, according to seasens and
circumstances, either had to 'boil down' the surplus
or else 'tin' and export it as preserved meat.' How-
ever good in quality, or however carefully prepared,
experience has proved that there is a great prejudice
against it in the mother country, especially among the
very classes for which from its cheapness it was ex-
pected to be best adapted; and as the matter is of too
great a moment to Colonial interest to be allowed to
languish, various methods have been proposed here by
which the meat could be sent home in some more
palatable or, at any rate, more market able form. Mr.
T. S. Mort has come to the front, and, after eight
years of unwearied efforts and repeated disappoint-
ment, has at last succeeded (at a cost to himself solely
I believe, of over £100,000) in perfecting appliances by
which whole cargoes can be shipped frozen, and kept
frozen while on the passage, so that on arrival in Ene,
land the whole uncooked fresh carcass can be handed
to the meat salesman as sweet as when first killed
here. As far as successfully accomplishing all he
sought for on shore, there is no doubt of that, as meat
kept at the works for months, has been tested here
by hundreds of us, and we could detect ne differ-
ence in flavour or appearance between it and ordinary
butchers' meat; but, of course, the stowing it in a
ship's hold and sending it through all changes of climate
involves a special adaptation (for the sea voyage), of
means only hitherto proved suitable on shore and
es there is, of course therefore, a new element of risk,
his fellow colonists have felt that he should not wholly
incur that, and a public meeting called for the purpose
unanimously arranged to raise £25,000 for the sole
purpose of sending a trial shipment to England. Mr.
Mort, with his usual liberality, forgoes all claims for
patent right pront, and also arranges for his partner in
it (Mr. Nicolle), to go personally in oharge, so that in
event of there arising some unforseen difficulty his
inventive genius may be at hand to promptly remedy
or remove it. Over 218,000 has been already collected
towards carrying out the experiment, and you may
therefore expect to hear within a very short time of
500 tons of frozen fresh meat being on it way from
Sydney to London. Should it succeed fully, it requires
no prophet to foretell what a real blessing it will prove
to the whole of the lower and middle classes at home ;
and if it be. true, as said by Sydney Smith, tl,at the
heart of good government is roast mutton,' it will also
prove a boon to the whole commonwealth indirectly,
besides opening up a profitable market for our surplus
of beef and mutton here, the extra profits horn which
will again return to the mother country in payment of
extra goods we could not otherwise have ordered and
paid for."