The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-12-05
EATING HORSE NEAT.
A PRACTICE THAT is GROWING AND is
WELL SUPPORTED.

to BE Better For Food Than Pork-The
Economic Side of the Question Present.
ed In Il ToroibIc Manner.
Paris and Vienna cheap restaurants
substitute horse meat for other kinds of
butchers meat, as matter of course.
Hitherto even in Paris, where tho ad
vantages of horses meat as a regular
item on bills of fare have been known
ever since the siege of Paris, restaurants
hesitate to publish the fact that they arc
serving it to their customers for fear of
tho popular prejudice. Yet just as oloo-
margarine is infinitely better than genu-
inc butter of IA poor quality, so ordinary
horse meat is better for health and fla.
vor than meat from cattle sold for the
use Of the poorer classes.
The poorer people abroad learn to live
largely without meat. A driver on a
London omnibus, who seemed to be q
man of intelligence and thrift, told the
writer that he could afford meat only
once or twice week. The poorer classes
in Berlin and Vienna arc forced by the
| high prices to 60 without meat. In Paris
the custom of using horse meat has made
it possible for all the poorer classes who
have to do heavy labor to obtain suffi-
cient amount of nourishing animal food
Horses meat differs from beef in be-
ing slightly coarser in grain and having
a slightly richer flavor. Its quality
naturally depends on the age of the
beast AS a rule, even though it may be
&ln e. 30,
than beef. While the herds of cattle
each year are producing among them
selves more tubcrculous infection, horses
have little chance to communicate tn
| berculosis or any other disease to one
another, because they are seldom kept
closely together The diet of horses fits
them for food purposes even moro than
cows, and infinitely moro than swine or
poultry.
The business Of Strengthening horses
for their meat is undoubtedly Oh the in
crease III the United States because a
large market has opened in Europe for
| horse meat, especially when it is canned.
Tho Germans are eating it, though IN
consciously, in tho form of sausage.
An unknown amount comes back to
America as canned meat, and not i'm
| probably forms a staple item of diet in
all public or private institutions whore
| feeding by contract is carried on. That
| this industry will rapidly increase is
certain from the fact that horses are be-
coming cheaper and more abundant. The
farms out west can better afford to feed
| horses with their grain if they can sell
| the horses for their meat.
The result will be that if horses come
| largely into the market as a food prod
| uct the younger horses will be killed off
before they are 3 years old to save the
expense of longer feeding them. This
will do away with the last real reason
| against the use of horse meat-that only
old and feeble horses are used.
A great gain will be made in prevent
| ing the constant production of lame or
feeble horses by drivers. Just as soon as
| a horse becomes little past his best
strength and speed the owners will sell
them off to butchers, just as ordinary
COWS and oxen are sold. The horse for
driving and teaming will be then a
much finer animal through genuine
Survival Of the tittest."
The business troubles in the United
| States and the increasing number of
men without employment aro emphasiz-
| ing the fact that every possible factor
| must be utilized to make living cheaper
| and better for the poorer classce. Meat
| fed labor cannot compete with labor fed
| - d. a. ii
| Accompanies better work.
Few people realize how rigidly the
old Mosaic law, largely discarded even
| among Jews, holds among the people at
| large On account Of distinctions made
! by tho laws of Moses between animals
clean and unclean many animals, on &C.
count OF some peculiar arrangement of
their feet, have been denied to the use
| of mankind as food. The one excep-
| ton is pork, which is perhaps the most
| unfit for food of all meat on account of
| the filthy habits and feeding of most
swine.
| OTientals decline to eat camel meat,
though this also is finding it's way to
Paris in larger amounts every year.
| arc disliked from some similar preiu-
! dice Carnivorous animals nuet al
ways be discarded because Of their fond
ness for carton. Horses, however, are
| the daintiest caters of the entire animal
| kingdom.
There was time when horses were
SO closely associated with msn in all
work and progress that simple affection
! for horse rendered the id"s. o. butch-
ering him ropugnant But now the era
of the horse has passed. The bioysle has
| replaced the saddle horse, the motor
wagon the buggy and stage, md tho
lack Of room in city life has mado a
horse as a pet no longer practicable.
| That horses will be exterminated if used
for butchers meat is no more possible
than that cattle or sheep will be. And
the future breeds Of horses in America,
| fostered by the continuous killing off of
all but the strongest and most beautiful,
will be highly improved. New York
| Press