The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-03-28
SUNDAY MORNING. MARCH 2s, 1856
THE FRESH NEAT QUESTION.

All the fallacies, all the blunders, all the
frauds and corruptions, all the wrongs and
expressions that exist in government or in
the conditions of society, resolve themselves
ultimately into war upon the subsistence of
the people. The battle which has perpetu-
ally to be waged with this conspiracy
against civilization and the human race is
battle for life. And at many crisis during
that long night when politics and even politi-
cal economy were wild medley of conflict
ing passions and discordant declarations, the
struggle was, indeed, woful and precarious
one. But the epoch which saw science d.
yorced almost wholly from the solution Of
the most vital questions incident to human
affairs is, let us trust, passing away, to be
succeeded by another in which science shall be
installed, under a perpetual tenure, as the
prime minister of craftsmanship. Already
some of the most influential minds engaged ac-
lively in public careers, confess the ne
cessity ofassuming the principle that physical
and moral and political evils are strictly cor
relative, as the first step towards solving the
exigent problems of the day. Mr.. John
Bright sees no hope for the accomplishment
of genuine and substantial reform in England,
no hope for permanently allaying the difficult
ties and perils which beset the impending
future of that country, until effectual meas
ures shall be devised for assuring the physi-
cal comfort and happiness of the English
masses One of the most essential condi-
tions of such result, in his opinion, is ga
koHI Co Ev,nx ,o1x
And he is right. What he means by free
breakfast table is not simply untaxed coffee,
tea, sugar and so on. 1t expresses his ideal
of the largest liberty for the people in respect
to all the possibilities and all the elements of
abundant and wholesome subsistence which
nature yields and which science can utilize.
What stands most in the way of approach to
this ideal by the American masses as well as
the English masses are barbarous restric-
tons imposed upon commerce by rulers
who are either shamefully incompe-
tent or atrociously INSCRIPTIONS. Here in
this city, for instance, in addition to onerous
general taxation on every thing that apper-
tains to the breakfast table, local monopoly
threatens to organize starvation by making
fresh meat luxury in which only the excep-
tionally rich can afford to indulge. Now, it
is well known that, in respect to diet, man is
acomposite animal, being equally carnivorous
and vegetarian. And as carnivore he does
not merely need meat in an indefinite sense;
it is indispensable to the thrift of his physi-
cal organization that he shall consume q GER
tain modicum offresh meat Hence stale flesh,
preserved in SALT or vinegar, or oil, never
could fully satisfy his carnivorous demand.
For in the picking there is an essential
change in the quality of the flesh. 1t is
different substance from what it was in the
beginning.
A piece of salt beef which has gone with
ship half round the world is no more like a
fresh, succulent beefsteak than glass of sour
wine is like bunch of ripe grapes, hardly
more like it than wooden nutmeg is like the
genuine spice newly gathered from the tree.
The hardship and the hurt which fresh meat
monopoly may infict on community is thus
only too evident. But is there no way to cir
cumvent it? Perhaps. Indeed, there are
those who believe that science has already
solved the question of preserving meat without
sutiecting it to change of its original essence
of preserving it, that is to say, in state of
permanent freshness. In such an event con-
sumers could snap their fingers at slaughter
house monopolies, and all kindred monopolies
for plundering people under the threat of
blockading their stomachs. There would no
longer be need of slaughtering for daily
wants. Fresh beef from the pampas of South
America or the prairies of Texas would be as
common in the large cities Of Europe and
America as dried herring or dried Goldfish now
are. There are three processes by which, as
it is claiped by their several advocates. this
much desiderated improvement in the worlds
dietary system may be accomplished One is
thus described by the Anglo-Colonial Maya
zine Of Australia
Magazine says: Nessrs. Medlock 4 Bsley's
patent process Of preserving meat by bisulphite
Of lime certainly appear TO be not only the resdies
method that We know ct present Whatever else
may turn up), but the least unAppetising and the
least likely to create storm In the kitchen; and
n saying This we do not mean in the slightest de-
gree 70 give the lime process a. undue prominence
over those Of other inventors, except on these
points. But We cannot shut Our eyes to the fact
hat IL h equally applicable 70 the larder Of the
ANAL housekeeper, me abattore Of the butcher
or the pecesaities Of the Wholesale exporter O
meat The solution consists Of the pure bisui
ohite Of liue end the mode OF application entirely
5euepda on he length Of time that the meat hs
- Be kept For joints In very hot weather. or tn
tropics, stepping Tor one minute b sufhcisat, III