We seem to be threatened with a Meat famine, as
well as a famine of Coal. All over the North the workmen and their wives are protesting quite savagely against the price of meat, and the butchers are holding meetings to see if they cannot compel Mr. Forster to let in foreign cattle more freely. At a meeting of the butchers of Manchester on Thursday, it was stated that the British supply of meat had been declining for three consecutive years, while the demand among the working-classes had tripled. Formerly they ate meat on alternate days, but now, said one jolly butcher, "it was chop, and steak, and frizzle and fry all the week long," a change he for some odd reason appeared to regret. The prospect, moreover, does not improve. The plague has appeared at Hamburg, and Mr. Forster, with a lively recollection of the cattle-plague stampede, when the country gentlemen trod down all opposition, and justice too, has been compelled to order German cattle and sheep to be slaughtered before landing. The only hope appears to be in Australian meat or American bacon, and both need much improvement in preparation. By the way, would it not pay to prepare beef, say in Holstein, and send it over ready to eat? It would not be so cheap as Australian meat, but it might be much -better prepared.
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