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plainly enough, on the countenances of the hapless race who inhabit these "Lugentes Campi." At Deptford there is a regulation forbidding bad language and riotous behaviour among the slaughter-men, on pain of expulsion. On market days when the place is crowded with operative slaughterers, retailers of meat, hide-sellers, and others, the regulation beseomes a dead letter. The constable in charge humorously remarked—"We should have to expel the whole lot of them."
It may, of course, be urged that the mere fact that the business of slaughtering animals produces, and must of necessity produce, the demoralisation of those engaged in it, is not by itself a sufficient argument against meat-eating. If meat-eating is a necessity for health and strength, then animals must be killed, whatever the consequent suffering to them, and degradation of the unfortunate butcher class. If, on the contrary, meat is not only not necessary, but actually injurious, standing in the same relation to wholesome food as brandy to wholesome drinks, then, directly that is acknowledged, the shambles could at once cease to be used, and could be purified and disinfected, and converted into wholesome receptacles for grains and fruit.
It was the painful duty of the writer of the present paper, in conjunction with another amateur inspector, to undertake, a few years ago, an examination of the London slaughter-houses, both public and private, as well as some provincial "abattoirs." This inspection, as far as London private slaughter-houses are concerned, has been recently repeated. In the Metropolis there are at present about
