The supply of sheep and lambs has, during the last twenty years, stood nearly still; for in 1828 there were brought to market 1,412,032, and in 1849 but 1,417,000, or only an extra 4,000 for the 500,000 mouths which have been added to the metropolis between these two periods. That London has of late years abjured mutton, as our immediate ancestors appear to have done pork, the evidence of our senses denies. How, then, are we to explain this stagnation in the Smithfield returns? By the fact that a new channel has been found in the rapid rise of Newgate market, the great receptacle of country-killed meat brought up to town by the railways. Those who remember the place forty years ago state that there were not then twenty salesmen, and now there are two hundred. This enormous development is due to steam, which bids fair to give Newgate, in the cold season at least, the lead over Smithfield. The new agent has more than quadrupled the area from which London draws its meat. Twenty years ago eighty miles was the farthest distance from which carcases ever came; now the Great Northern and North-Western railways, during the winter months, bring hundreds of tons from as far north as Aberdeen, whilst some are fetched from Hamburgh and Ostend. Country slaughtering will in time, we have little doubt, deliver the capital from the nuisances which grow out of this horrible trade. Aberdeen is in fact becoming little else than a London _abattoir_. The style in which the butchers of that place dress and pack the carcases leaves nothing to be desired, and in the course of the year mountains of beef, mutton, pork, and veal arrive the night after it is slaughtered in perfect condition. According to returns obligingly forwarded to us by the different railway companies, we find that the following was the weight of country-killed meat by the undermentioned lines:--
Tons. Eastern Counties 10,398 North-Western 4,602 Great Western 5,200 Great Northern 13,152[23] South-Eastern 1,035 South-Western 2,000 Brighton and South Coast 100 ------ 36,487
Thus no less than 36,487 tons of meat are annually "pitched" at Newgate and Leadenhall markets. As the Scotch boats convey about 700 tons more, we have at least 37,187 tons of country-killed meat brought into London by steam, and these immense contributions are totally independent of the amount slaughtered at Smithfield, which is estimated to average weekly 1,000 oxen, 3,000 sheep and lambs, and 400 calves and pigs. We have given the average supply; but on some occasions the quantity is enormously increased. The Eastern Counties line during one Christmas week deposited at Newgate about 1,000 tons of meat; and the weight sent by other companies on the same day would be proportionately large. No less than forty waggons were waiting on one occasion to discharge their beef and mutton into the market. And what does our reader imagine may be the area in which nine-tenths of this mass of meat are sold? Just 2 roods 45 perches, having one carriage entrance, which varies from 14 to 18 feet in width, and four foot entrances, the widest of which is only 16 feet 6 inches, and the narrowest 5 feet 8 inches. No wonder that, as we are informed by more than one of the witnesses before the Smithfield Inquiry Commission, there is often not sufficient space to expose the meat for sale, and it becomes putrid in consequence. Though we have acquired the fame of being a practical people, it must be confessed that we conduct many of our every-day transactions in a blundering manner, when we cannot provide commodious markets for perishable commodities, or even turn out an omnibus that can be mounted without an effort of agility and daring.