UNLOADING A NEW ZEALAND ICED-MEAT SHIP.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3776, 22 August 1883, Page 4

UNLOADING A NEW ZEALAND ICED-MEAT SHIP.

During the present Aveek the Lady Jocelyn, a .ship of over 2000 tons burthen, lias been discharging in the Victoria Dock her cargo of frozen mutton just arrived from New Zealand. This vessel brings 6000 carcases of sheep in splendid frozen condition, from Wellington, New Zealand. It is only two years since this new trade began. It costs X-iOOO to fit a .ship like tho Lady Jocelyn Avitli refrigerating upparatus, witli the result that rooms are provided for some two or three hundred tons of cargo at a temperature Avhich, during a three months' voyage, quite regardless of the heat of the tropics through which tho vessel sails after rounding Capo Horn, is never alloAved to rise above freezing point, and is for the most part far bcloAV It. The dock labourers, as they ■work at tho task of unloading this vessel, pauso now and again to bIoAV and buffet

their hands, for they are Avorking in the climate of an English Christmas or a NeAV Zealand July. The carcases, each wrapped in a neat AA'hitc shroud of sacking, and that again coated OY'er with thick hoar frost, are hard as stones. Though the main cargo is mutton, beef is also represented, and .some turkeys and fish have also been thrown in, so that Londoners Avill knoAV AA'hat'' schnappers " taste like and investigate the merits of "king-fish." But the main interest of the cargo lies, of course, in the GOOO odd sheep Avhich four months ago Avere bleating in New Zealand, and are iioav, avo are told, selling for 7d. a If), as fresh mutton to the butchers in Smithfield 3larkct. The carcases weigh G3lb. to 801b. Tho sheep aro a cross between tho small merino ram and the larger Leicester cave. The mutton is said to bo excellent, and somo of it has 110 doubt appeared on AVcst-end tables. The trade evidently admits of great development. —Home Ngavs.