The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1890-07-26
noRsEFLEsH FOR FOOD.
Englishmen Say It Is Quite as
Good as Other Meat.

Three horses were killed for tn
occasion, says writer in the Nine
tenth Century, referring to a grea
banquet given in London. Two hat
been carthorses and one had beer
driven in a brougham, and in hi
prime had been worth 700 guineas
Their respective ages were four
twenty and twenty-five years. A
baron was carved from the four
year-old. Sir John Lubbock, one Of
the guests, referring recently to the
great ages of the horses, informed
me that no matter how great the
age of horse, provided that it had
a few weeks rest and that it was
fed up before being slaughtered, its
flesh should be quite good for hu-
man food, and that it should not
be tough, as one might naturally
expect. Sir Henry Thompson was
also one of the guests, and his
opinion of horse flesh as human
food may, think, be gathered from
the statement which he made short
ly afterward that he had carefully
compared liquid extracts made as
tea, from beef and horse respective
ly, and that he considered the latter
equal to the former both in flavor
and in nutritive quality.
It is not generally known that
large amount of hOrsehesh is sold
in England for human food. The
reason for this ignorance is that the
carcasses of the horses are kept out
of sight and that the meat is sold
secretly. This fact makes it diff
cult to ascertain the extent of the
sale. Moreover, it frequently hap
pens that horses are slaughtered and
cut up in one town and the flesh
sent for consumption to another.
For instance, Manchester butchers
say that large quantity of horse
flesh comes into Manchester from
the neighborhood of Oldham, while
the Oldham authorities say that
they are not aware that horsefesh is
sold for food in their town. Again,
according to the town clerk, horse
flesh is not known to be sold for
human food at Bradford, but is
known to be sent from Bradford to
Manchester, where it is sold as
butchers meat. 1t is supposed to
be sent as food for animals, but no
questions are asked about it. One
of the Bradford slaughterers, who
kills above 1000 horses and COWS
annually, the COWS being fewer in
number than the horses, and being
such as butchers would not venture |
to kill or sell, says that a very small
proportion of his horses would be
tit for human food-perhaps one
month--that is to say, such horses
as have met with an accident. The
rest of the animals are all diseased
or decayed. Again, large quantities
of horset1esh are sent from Newcas-
tie to London, and this horseAesh
is sent ostensibly as cats meat in
order to disarm suspicion and that
carriage for it may be paid at
cheap railway rate. This fact is
strangely suspicious, for, when one
considers how many horses there
are in and around London, and how
large number of these horses must
die or be killed annually, and when
one remembers that there is no
large and open sale for the flesh of
those horses, except as cats meat,
it seems that London might as we'll
send coal to Newcastle as Newcastle
send cats meat to London. The
flesh is boiled at the knacker's ward
and the fat is collected from the
pots when boiling and sold to grease
merchants or to manufacturers for
lubricating machinery. It is only
the lean that is sent to London.