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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5161, 5 March 1888, Page 2

"The Arawa's froxen meat is soiling at 4d per lb." This is an item of news in to-day's cablegrams, and it shows that there is no improvement of tho system under which it would seem all branches connected with the trade combino to rob tho producer of bis legitimate profits. It is a scandalous shame that everybody can make money out of frozen meat except the unfortunate sheepfanner who supplies tho mutton. The middlemen, who somehow get between the producer and the-butcher, and the butcher who gets between the middlemen and the ((OOlisunier, make their profits without risk, and with the regularity of market days. Eye-witnesses have told us howthe carcasses are presented to the buyer : and a more disgraceful state of things, or a more audacious contempt for the value of the meat cannot bo imagined. Many of our readers have been in London, and they know what the streets are like in wet weather. In rain or sunshine Smithfield is never clean, nnd cannot be from tho nature of the market. On market day, up come the carts loaded from the frozen meat depots ; it does not matter whether it is pouring with rain. Arrived at the proper spot at the market place, men in their mud and slush smothered boots mount the carts, treading on the meat, and commence "chucking" the carcasses into the dirty street. Bespattered ■with filth, the bags that covered the carcisses ripped and torn away, tho halfthawed dripping wet meat is offered for sale. And, as we aro told to-day, it realises ■Id per lb. The wonder is that it finds a buyer.,. Once in tho butcher's hands it is treated properly, cleaned of 'its market sriiins, and sold with the bland smile of a practised liar as best English or Scotch. We do not know what the shecpfarmers are nhnut to have so lonj* submitted to a sfcitc of things that leaves them and their property unprotected, and, apparently, unrepresented.