Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1897-02-20
EATING HORSE MEAT.
A PRACTICE THAT is GROWING AND is
WELL SUPPORTED.

Flesh IF the Horse Is Heaithful and Said
to -, Better For Food Than Pork-The
EconDmic Side of the Question Present.
ed In Forcible Manner.
Paris and Vienna cheap restaurants
substitute horse meat for other kinds Of
butchers meat, as a matter of course.
Hitherto even i'll Paris, where the adj
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 are
serving it to their customers for fear of
the popular prejudice. Yet just as cleo
margarine is infinitely better than genu-
Inc butter OF "a 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
London omnibus, who seemed to be
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 are forced by the
high prices to go 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 a suffi-
Gent amount of nourishing animal food.
Horse S meat differs from beef in be-
ing slightly coarser III grain and having
a slightly richer flavor. Its quality
naturally depends on the age of the
beast. AS rule, even though it may be
tougher, the meat is far safer to eat
than beef. While the herds Of cattle
each year are producing among them
selves more tuberculous infection, horses
have little chance to communicate tu-
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 more than
COWS, and infinitely more than swine or
poultry.
The business of slaughterng horses
for their meat is undoubtedly on the ill.,
crease i'll the United States because q
large market has opened in Europe for
horse meat, especially when j is canned.
The Germans are eating it, though I'M
An unknown amount comes back to
America as canned meat and not i'm
probably forms Il staple item of diet i'll
all public Or private institutions where
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 food prod
uct the younger horses will be killed off
before they are 2 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 i'll prevent
ing the constant production of lame or
feeble horses by drivers. Just as soon as
"a horse becomes a 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 a genuine
"survival of the tittest''
The business troubles in the United
States and the increasing number Of
men without employment are emphasiz-
ing the fact that every possible factor
must be utilized to make living cheaper
and better for the poorer classes. Meat
fed labor cannot compete with labor fed
Oh rice OF macHrOni. But meat fed labor
accomplishcs 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 the laws of Moses between animals
clean and unclean many animals, on ac-
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.
Orientals decline to eat camel meat,
though this also is finding its way to
Paris in larger amounts every year.
Many kinds of wild animals and birds
are dis]iked from some similar preju
dice Calnivorous animals must al
ways be discarded because of their fond
ness for carbon. Horses, however, are
the daintiesC eaters of the entire animal
kingdom.
There was IA time when horses were
so closely associated with man in all
work and progress that simple affection
for il horse rendered the idea of butch
ering him repugnant. But now the era
of the horse has passed. The bicycle has
replaced the saddle horse, the motor
wagon the buggy and stage. and the
lack of room i'll city life has made il
horse as IA pet no longer practicable.
That horses will be eXterminuted if used
for butchers meat is no more possib BILE
than that cattle or sheep will be- And
the future breeds of horses in Amel lea,
fostered by the continuous killing off of
all but the strongest and most beautiful
will be highly improved, New York
Press.
requests For Ent"rprisins Youth.
Now and then we hear of some rich
person leaving several hundred thou