CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) BILL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7227, 29 April 1884, Page 5

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) BILL.

Regarding this measure, which has just been giving Mr Gladstone's Government so much trouble at Home, we find the following in G. A. Sala's " Eihoes of the Week " : There has been read a second time in the House of Lords a Bill, promoted by the Duke of Kiehmond and Gordon, whieh, if it becomes lav, will enforce a total prohibition of the importation of foreign eattle, and the eft'eet of which will be to make butcher's meat 25 per cent dearer than it now is. Ladies who keep house, how would you like to have to pay Is ad per lb for mutton.. Is id per lb for roasting beef, and Is Sd per lb for rump steak ? It, will come to that if the importation of foreign animals be prohibited. Such a prohibition would be a terrible cruelty and injustice to the poor. There are portions of animals technically known as '• offals "—namely, heads, hearts, liver, tripe, and so forth. Polite society would shudder at the idea of a " jemmy," of baked aud stuffed bullock's heart, of fried liver or of tripe smothered in " inguns"; but the poor are passionately fond of such '-internal arrangements." The offals of a sheep will feed eight people. The offals of a bullock will feed" forty-two people. With imported dead meat no offals come. We cannot get enough frozen meat from America or from the Antipddes; while, as regards the Continent, the exclusion of live meat is tantamount to the cessation of the importation of the dead commodity. Since the importation of live animals from France has been interdicted, the supply of dead meat from France has been virtually nil. Think of this,ladies who keep house; and pardon me for prosing about such a dull subject as the price of butchers' meat.