The Express.
London, England, 1865-07-25 00:00:00

(ar Darr= AND nusa asossnc MIGRAPH.?

VALEITIIik, JULY 24.
A fault has occurred at or near the shore end of
the splice of the cable. Messages received from the
Great Eastern, dated 4.30 p.m., complain of want
of insulation. She has now hove-to about seventy
or eighty miles from the shore end. The Caroline
is about to start from here to pick up the splice
and ascertain the defect. Signals still come from
the Great Eastern, and there seems to be no reason
to believe that the mishap is anything but tempo-
rary. The H.awk is on the point of starting to the
big ship with messages.
Too much strain at the time of splicing is the
supposed cause of the mishap.

Vie eraresS.

TO 0011 TONDRITS.
ivorllsomeors Wooded tor "
ei:oci :To bodayarot 10,117rvoeiroloost."41" Ibringrwo

PIINCIDDIL
TICS AVIIIMIII,IIIAZZIMIIifeII AND TIDDLI-STILINGIL
11.1111,1%.
D.
esaisman sag lan K. unser.= AM Azar= AFOLOGIY.

!lure.

Tots Hymns. THIItrECATISTITD FIRST CLASS. Means.
Crautord, , sad Parry Mesdames Yarnold.
Motion, and 14toincett.iiantiltirliada—And TIM HZBLEW
DIAMOND; OR, THE EYE OT LIGHT! Miss St. Came.

NIGH WATER AT LONDOLDErDOZ.
To4soAeow Morelia, ib. Wm Attowsace. b. td.
TER DAT Worming. 4h. lisk Allaesock 4E. Wis.

LONDON. TUESDAY. JULY 25.

Tits uneasiness about the price of meat is
spreading from country to country, and is even
felt in the United States, where it is always sup-
posed that there is enough of the necessaries of life
for everybody, and that everybody can get enough
of them. One of the strangest of American in-
stitutions is the Anti-Meat Club, lately established
in New York as a direct consequence of the high
price of meat. In that country the citizens may
retrench their meat diet with advantage to their
health, if, as their physicians believe, much of the
prevalent indigestion is due to the habit
of eating meat three times a day. In
the rural districts the everlasting beef-
steak probably maintains its supremacy ; but
if, among the artisans in the towns, meat is on the
table only once a day, or not every day,
they must think it the oddest change that
ever came over their country. If there is
anybody there living without meat at all,
what an outcry there must be about the day
having come which nobody ever thought to see !
Part of the extraordinary price of meat there is
doubtless due to the paper currency, which has
made all commodities dearer than the rise of wages
has overtaken ; but there are also evidences that
the production of meat has not kept pace with the
incessant and rapid increase of demand. If this
goes on, the Australian shepherds and stock
keepers will soon be the only people who eat meat
three times a day. _ _ _

From various parts of the Continent we hear of
popular discontents growing out of the high price
of meat. In India, a daily dinner of meat is
already beyond the means of many European
gentry—living on fixed incomes. Monetary
disturbance has something to do with this ; but
it is believed that increase of demand has
a good deal more. No provision having been
made to meet this demand, the animals have been
killed off in a most improvident way for some
years past, and three times the old price is paid
for sheep of a poorer quality than Europeans would
formerly have admitted to their table. How to
get the mutton rations now wanted for the troops
in the provinces is a great question in India. We
read of • great growth of agricultural societies,
and of shows of live stock as well as of field and
garden produce ; and we hear of proposals that
sheep farms shall be established under government
care, if natural speculation does not render such
enterprises unnecessary. By whatever hands,
some effort of the sort must be made, in order at
once to stop the deterioration of quality, and to
increase the quantity of meat in some proportion
to the growing demand.
At home there are complaints and proposals on
the same subject on every hand. In the com-
plaints there is all possible harmony, for the high
price of meat affects us all, from royal households
to workhouse and prison contractors, while it bears
very hardly on the daily life of the labouring
classes. In the proposals of remedies and pallia-
tives, there is a remarkable diversity, as there
always is in the case of any other alarm.
According to the testimony of the medical
profession a large proportion of the lower middle,
and upper working class are in the habit of eating
much more than is good for them, and especially of
meat, so that there would be a great saving of life
and health if the food actually eaten, and especially
the meat, could be more equally divided between
them and the hungry poor, who, by all toil pos-
sible to them, can only earn enough to keep them-
selves alive.
The more comfortable class will do well to re-
strict themselves to one meal of meat per day;
and also to resort to other kinds of animal food.
If the price of beef and mutton continues to rise,
as is threatened, we shall no doubt avail ourselves
at last of the wealth of food which the surround-
ing sea is always ready to yield us. When we
become such fish-eaters as our Catholic forefathers
were, we shall have provided one great security
against such an expenditure for meat u we are
now compelled to make. In his speech on malt,
Mr. CAIRO told us, lately, that every additional
ld. per lb. paid by Londoners for meat amounts
to a levy of a million and a quarter sterling per
annum on the metropolis. At the same time,
Mr. Macni and other sellers of stock tell us that
they have sold their lambs this season at 40a.
each—equal to ls. per lb. Thus, the citizens of
London—paying annual millions in this direction—
may well look round for advice as to what they
should do next, and what they may expect next
year and afterwards.
One suggestion has been received in a way which
shows how much the public, and some ready ad-
visers of the public, have to learn on a subject in
which we all have an interest. By letters to
London journals, and by communications to pro-
vincial newspapers, occasioning much discussion,
we have been exhorted to abstain from eating lamb
and veal. The writers and those who applaud
them no doubt take for granted that every calf and
every lamb spared now will grow up to produoe
more, in the same way that vegetarians assume
that every animal now killed for food would live a
long life and die of old age if not slaughtered.
The vegetarians overlook the fact that a vast pro-
portion of the animals living in any year would
not have existed at all but for the demand for them
as food, and that the alternative in fact is
between a smaller number living a longer
life, and a larger number a shorter life. In
the same way our present advisers are evidently
unaware that a large proportion of the lambs and
calves of each year are unfit for breeding purposes.
It will scarcely be disputed that the very first ob-
ject is to maintain and carry on the improvement
of breeds. All hope of the next generation being
well supplied with beef, mutton, and wool rests on
the preservation of the best breeds ; and there
would be an end of this at once if every cross-bred
lamb and calf were permitted to live to increase its