night to devour the offal; whereas, here there are no such natural
scavengers, and quite as savage customs. Further, they will
demonstrate that nothing in Nature is intended to be wasted, and
that besides the waste which such abuses occasion in the articles
of health and life – main sources of the riches of any community –
they lead to a prodigious waste of changing matters, which might,
with proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely
applied to the increase of the fertility of the land. Thus (they
argue) does Nature ever avenge infractions of her beneficent laws,
and so surely as Man is determined to warp any of her blessings
into curses, shall they become curses, and shall he suffer heavily.
But, this is cant. Just as it is cant of the worst description to
say to the London Corporation, ‘How can you exhibit to the people
so plain a spectacle of dishonest equivocation, as to claim the
right of holding a market in the midst of the great city, for one
of your vested privileges, when you know that when your last market
holding charter was granted to you by King Charles the First,
Smithfield stood IN THE SUBURBS OF LONDON, and is in that very
charter so described in those five words?’ – which is certainly
true, but has nothing to do with the question.
Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civilisation,
between the capital of England, and the capital of that frog-eating
and wooden-shoe wearing country, which the illustrious Common
Councilman so sarcastically settled.
In Paris, there is no Cattle Market. Cows and calves are sold
within the city, but, the Cattle Markets are at Poissy, about
thirteen miles off, on a line of railway; and at Sceaux, about five
miles off. The Poissy market is held every Thursday; the Sceaux
market, every Monday. In Paris, there are no slaughter-houses, in
our acceptation of the term. There are five public Abattoirs –
within the walls, though in the suburbs – and in these all the
slaughtering for the city must be performed. They are managed by a
Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, who confer with the Minister of the
Interior on all matters affecting the trade, and who are consulted
when any new regulations are contemplated for its government. They
are, likewise, under the vigilant superintendence of the police.
Every butcher must be licensed: which proves him at once to be a
slave, for we don’t license butchers in England – we only license
apothecaries, attorneys, post-masters, publicans, hawkers,
retailers of tobacco, snuff, pepper, and vinegar – and one or two
other little trades, not worth mentioning. Every arrangement in
connexion with the slaughtering and sale of meat, is matter of
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strict police regulation. (Slavery again, though we certainly have
a general sort of Police Act here.)
But, in order that the reader may understand what a monument of
folly these frog-eaters have raised in their abattoirs and cattlemarkets,
and may compare it with what common counselling has done
for us all these years, and would still do but for the innovating
spirit of the times, here follows a short account of a recent visit
to these places:
It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire to feel at
your fingers’ ends when I turned out – tumbling over a chiffonier
with his little basket and rake, who was picking up the bits of
coloured paper that had been swept out, over-night, from a Bon-Bon
shop – to take the Butchers’ Train to Poissy. A cold, dim light
just touched the high roofs of the Tuileries which have seen such
changes, such distracted crowds, such riot and bloodshed; and they
looked as calm, and as old, all covered with white frost, as the
very Pyramids. There was not light enough, yet, to strike upon the
towers of Notre Dame across the water; but I thought of the dark
pavement of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be streaked with
grey; and of the lamps in the ‘House of God,’ the Hospital close to
it, burning low and being quenched; and of the keeper of the Morgue