The Times seems to have stumbled on an economic mare's-neat.
It says butchers are paying just the same wholesale price for best beef, namely, 9d. a pound, as they were four years ago, while the retail price has risen. Consequently the butchers are oppressing their customers. Not a bit of it. The competition for whole beasts has not increased in the same ratio as competition for the best little bits of the beasts,—that is all. The number of butchers has but slightly in- creased—the whole trade not being more profitable than usual—while the number of customers for rumpsteaks has probably been tripled. It is-the introduction of a new class of purchasers for best meat, the "fry and frizzle, frizzle and fry" all day long, which has so increased the price. If a butcher could only obtain oxen made entirely of rumpeteak, competition would very soon bring down his prices. It is because oxen will have legs and heads and other unpopular limbs, that he charges such a price for their hind- quarters.
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