IT was profoundly observed by a witty member of the Court of Common
Council, in Council assembled in the City of London, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, that the French are a
frog-eating people, who wear wooden shoes.
We are credibly informed, in reference to the nation whom this choice
spirit so happily disposed of, that the caricatures and stage
representations which were current in England some half a century ago,
exactly depict their present condition. For example, we understand that
every Frenchman, without exception, wears a pigtail and curl-papers.
That he is extremely sallow, thin, long-faced, and lantern-jawed. That
the calves of his legs are invariably undeveloped; that his legs fail at
the knees, and that his shoulders are always higher than his ears. We
are likewise assured that he rarely tastes any food but soup maigre, and
an onion; that he always says, ‘By Gar! Aha! Vat you tell me, sare?’ at
the end of every sentence he utters; and that the true generic name of
his race is the Mounseers, or the Parly-voos. If he be not a
dancing-master, or a barber, he must be a cook; since no other trades but
those three are congenial to the tastes of the people, or permitted by
the Institutions of the country. He is a slave, of course. The ladies
of France (who are also slaves) invariably have their heads tied up in
Belcher handkerchiefs, wear long earrings, carry tambourines, and beguile
the weariness of their yoke by singing in head voices through their
noses—principally to barrel-organs.
It may be generally summed up, of this inferior people, that they have no
idea of anything.
Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable to form the least
conception. A Beast Market in the heart of Paris would be regarded an
impossible nuisance. Nor have they any notion of slaughter-houses in the
midst of a city. One of these benighted frog-eaters would scarcely
understand your meaning, if you told him of the existence of such a
British bulwark.
It is agreeable, and perhaps pardonable, to indulge in a little
self-complacency when our right to it is thoroughly established. At the
present time, to be rendered memorable by a final attack on that good old
market which is the (rotten) apple of the Corporation’s eye, let us
compare ourselves, to our national delight and pride as to these two
subjects of slaughter-house and beast-market, with the outlandish
foreigner.
The blessings of Smithfield are too well understood to need
recapitulation; all who run (away from mad bulls and pursuing oxen) may
read. Any market-day they may be beheld in glorious action. Possibly
the merits of our slaughter-houses are not yet quite so generally
appreciated.
Slaughter-houses, in the large towns of England, are always (with the
exception of one or two enterprising towns) most numerous in the most
densely crowded places, where there is the least circulation of air.
They are often underground, in cellars; they are sometimes in close back
yards; sometimes (as in Spitalfields) in the very shops where the meat is
sold. Occasionally, under good private management, they are ventilated
and clean. For the most part, they are unventilated and dirty; and, to
the reeking walls, putrid fat and other offensive animal matter clings
with a tenacious hold. The busiest slaughter-houses in London are in the
neighbourhood of Smithfield, in Newgate Market, in Whitechapel, in
Newport Market, in Leadenhall Market, in Clare Market. All these places
are surrounded by houses of a poor description, swarming with
inhabitants. Some of them are close to the worst burial-grounds in
London. When the slaughter-house is below the ground, it is a common
practice to throw the sheep down areas, neck and crop—which is exciting,
but not at all cruel. When it is on the level surface, it is often
extremely difficult of approach. Then, the beasts have to be worried,
and goaded, and pronged, and tail-twisted, for a long time before they
can be got in—which is entirely owing to their natural obstinacy. When
it is not difficult of approach, but is in a foul condition, what they
see and scent makes them still more reluctant to enter—which is their
natural obstinacy again. When they do get in at last, after no trouble
and suffering to speak of (for, there is nothing in the previous journey
into the heart of London, the night’s endurance in Smithfield, the
struggle out again, among the crowded multitude, the coaches, carts,
waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, dogs, boys,
whoopings, roarings, and ten thousand other distractions), they are
represented to be in a most unfit state to be killed, according to
microscopic examinations made of their fevered blood by one of the most
distinguished physiologists in the world, PROFESSOR OWEN—but that’s
humbug. When they _are_ killed, at last, their reeking carcases are hung
in impure air, to become, as the same Professor will explain to you, less
nutritious and more unwholesome—but he is only an _un_common counsellor,
so don’t mind _him_. In half a quarter of a mile’s length of
Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be six hundred newly slaughtered
oxen hanging up, and seven hundred sheep—but, the more the merrier—proof
of prosperity. Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick Lane, you shall see the
little children, inured to sights of brutality from their birth, trotting
along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their
ankles in blood—but it makes the young rascals hardy. Into the imperfect
sewers of this overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of
corruption, engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to
rise, in poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your sleeping
children will most readily absorb them, and to find its languid way, at
last, into the river that you drink—but, the French are a frog-eating
people who wear wooden shoes, and it’s O the roast beef of England, my
boy, the jolly old English roast beef.
It is quite a mistake—a newfangled notion altogether—to suppose that
there is any natural antagonism between putrefaction and health. They
know better than that, in the Common Council. You may talk about Nature,
in her wisdom, always warning man through his sense of smell, when he
draws near to something dangerous; but, that won’t go down in the City.
Nature very often don’t mean anything. Mrs. Quickly says that prunes are
ill for a green wound; but whosoever says that putrid animal substances
are ill for a green wound, or for robust vigour, or for anything or for
anybody, is a humanity-monger and a humbug. Britons never, never, never,
&c., therefore. And prosperity to cattle-driving, cattle-slaughtering,
bone-crushing, blood-boiling, trotter-scraping, tripe-dressing,
paunch-cleaning, gut-spinning, hide-preparing, tallow-melting, and other
salubrious proceedings, in the midst of hospitals, churchyards,
workhouses, schools, infirmaries, refuges, dwellings, provision-shops
nurseries, sick-beds, every stage and baiting-place in the journey from
birth to death!
These _un_common counsellors, your Professor Owens and fellows, will
contend that to tolerate these things in a civilised city, is to reduce
it to a worse condition than BRUCE found to prevail in ABYSSINIA. For
there (say they) the jackals and wild dogs came at night to devour the
offal; whereas, here there are no such natural scavengers, and quite as
savage customs. Further, they will demonstrate that nothing in Nature is
intended to be wasted, and that besides the waste which such abuses
occasion in the articles of health and life—main sources of the riches of
any community—they lead to a prodigious waste of changing matters, which
might, with proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely
applied to the increase of the fertility of the land. Thus (they argue)
does Nature ever avenge infractions of her beneficent laws, and so surely
as Man is determined to warp any of her blessings into curses, shall they
become curses, and shall he suffer heavily. But, this is cant. Just as
it is cant of the worst description to say to the London Corporation,
‘How can you exhibit to the people so plain a spectacle of dishonest
equivocation, as to claim the right of holding a market in the midst of
the great city, for one of your vested privileges, when you know that
when your last market holding charter was granted to you by King Charles
the First, Smithfield stood IN THE SUBURBS OF LONDON, and is in that very
charter so described in those five words?’—which is certainly true, but
has nothing to do with the question.
Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civilisation, between the
capital of England, and the capital of that frog-eating and wooden-shoe
wearing country, which the illustrious Common Councilman so sarcastically
settled.
In Paris, there is no Cattle Market. Cows and calves are sold within the
city, but, the Cattle Markets are at Poissy, about thirteen miles off, on
a line of railway; and at Sceaux, about five miles off. The Poissy
market is held every Thursday; the Sceaux market, every Monday. In
Paris, there are no slaughter-houses, in our acceptation of the term.
There are five public Abattoirs—within the walls, though in the
suburbs—and in these all the slaughtering for the city must be performed.
They are managed by a Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, who confer with the
Minister of the Interior on all matters affecting the trade, and who are
consulted when any new regulations are contemplated for its government.
They are, likewise, under the vigilant superintendence of the police.
Every butcher must be licensed: which proves him at once to be a slave,
for we don’t license butchers in England—we only license apothecaries,
attorneys, post-masters, publicans, hawkers, retailers of tobacco, snuff,
pepper, and vinegar—and one or two other little trades, not worth
mentioning. Every arrangement in connexion with the slaughtering and
sale of meat, is matter of strict police regulation. (Slavery again,
though we certainly have a general sort of Police Act here.)
But, in order that the reader may understand what a monument of folly
these frog-eaters have raised in their abattoirs and cattle-markets, and
may compare it with what common counselling has done for us all these
years, and would still do but for the innovating spirit of the times,
here follows a short account of a recent visit to these places:
* * * * *
It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire to feel at your
fingers’ ends when I turned out—tumbling over a chiffonier with his
little basket and rake, who was picking up the bits of coloured paper
that had been swept out, over-night, from a Bon-Bon shop—to take the
Butchers’ Train to Poissy. A cold, dim light just touched the high roofs
of the Tuileries which have seen such changes, such distracted crowds,
such riot and bloodshed; and they looked as calm, and as old, all covered
with white frost, as the very Pyramids. There was not light enough, yet,
to strike upon the towers of Notre Dame across the water; but I thought
of the dark pavement of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be
streaked with grey; and of the lamps in the ‘House of God,’ the Hospital
close to it, burning low and being quenched; and of the keeper of the
Morgue going about with a fading lantern, busy in the arrangement of his
terrible waxwork for another sunny day.
The sun was up, and shining merrily when the butchers and I, announcing
our departure with an engine shriek to sleepy Paris, rattled away for the
Cattle Market. Across the country, over the Seine, among a forest of
scrubby trees—the hoar frost lying cold in shady places, and glittering
in the light—and here we are—at Poissy! Out leap the butchers, who have
been chattering all the way like madmen, and off they straggle for the
Cattle Market (still chattering, of course, incessantly), in hats and
caps of all shapes, in coats and blouses, in calf-skins, cow-skins,
horse-skins, furs, shaggy mantles, hairy coats, sacking, baize, oil-skin,
anything you please that will keep a man and a butcher warm, upon a
frosty morning.
Many a French town have I seen, between this spot of ground and Strasburg
or Marseilles, that might sit for your picture, little Poissy! Barring
the details of your old church, I know you well, albeit we make
acquaintance, now, for the first time. I know your narrow, straggling,
winding streets, with a kennel in the midst, and lamps slung across. I
know your picturesque street-corners, winding up-hill Heaven knows why or
where! I know your tradesmen’s inscriptions, in letters not quite fat
enough; your barbers’ brazen basins dangling over little shops; your
Cafés and Estaminets, with cloudy bottles of stale syrup in the windows,
and pictures of crossed billiard cues outside. I know this identical
grey horse with his tail rolled up in a knot like the ‘back hair’ of an
untidy woman, who won’t be shod, and who makes himself heraldic by
clattering across the street on his hind-legs, while twenty voices shriek
and growl at him as a Brigand, an accursed Robber, and an
everlastingly-doomed Pig. I know your sparkling town-fountain, too, my
Poissy, and am glad to see it near a cattle-market, gushing so freshly,
under the auspices of a gallant little sublimated Frenchman wrought in
metal, perched upon the top. Through all the land of France I know this
unswept room at The Glory, with its peculiar smell of beans and coffee,
where the butchers crowd about the stove, drinking the thinnest of wine
from the smallest of tumblers; where the thickest of coffee-cups mingle
with the longest of loaves, and the weakest of lump sugar; where Madame
at the counter easily acknowledges the homage of all entering and
departing butchers; where the billiard-table is covered up in the midst
like a great bird-cake—but the bird may sing by-and-by!
A bell! The Calf Market! Polite departure of butchers. Hasty payment
and departure on the part of amateur Visitor. Madame reproaches
Ma’amselle for too fine a susceptibility in reference to the devotion of
a Butcher in a bear-skin. Monsieur, the landlord of The Glory, counts a
double handful of sous, without an unobliterated inscription, or an
undamaged crowned head, among them.
There is little noise without, abundant space, and no confusion. The
open area devoted to the market is divided into three portions: the Calf
Market, the Cattle Market, the Sheep Market. Calves at eight, cattle at
ten, sheep at mid-day. All is very clean.
The Calf Market is a raised platform of stone, some three or four feet
high, open on all sides, with a lofty overspreading roof, supported on
stone columns, which give it the appearance of a sort of vineyard from
Northern Italy. Here, on the raised pavement, lie innumerable calves,
all bound hind-legs and fore-legs together, and all trembling
violently—perhaps with cold, perhaps with fear, perhaps with pain; for,
this mode of tying, which seems to be an absolute superstition with the
peasantry, can hardly fail to cause great suffering. Here, they lie,
patiently in rows, among the straw, with their stolid faces and
inexpressive eyes, superintended by men and women, boys and girls; here
they are inspected by our friends, the butchers, bargained for, and
bought. Plenty of time; plenty of room; plenty of good humour.
‘Monsieur Francois in the bear-skin, how do you do, my friend? You come
from Paris by the train? The fresh air does you good. If you are in
want of three or four fine calves this market morning, my angel, I,
Madame Doche, shall be happy to deal with you. Behold these calves,
Monsieur Francois! Great Heaven, you are doubtful! Well, sir, walk
round and look about you. If you find better for the money, buy them.
If not, come to me!’ Monsieur Francois goes his way leisurely, and keeps
a wary eye upon the stock. No other butcher jostles Monsieur Francois;
Monsieur Francois jostles no other butcher. Nobody is flustered and
aggravated. Nobody is savage. In the midst of the country blue frocks
and red handkerchiefs, and the butchers’ coats, shaggy, furry, and hairy:
of calf-skin, cow-skin, horse-skin, and bear-skin: towers a cocked hat
and a blue cloak. Slavery! For _our_ Police wear great-coats and glazed
hats.
But now the bartering is over, and the calves are sold. ‘Ho! Gregoire,
Antoine, Jean, Louis! Bring up the carts, my children! Quick, brave
infants! Hola! Hi!’
The carts, well littered with straw, are backed up to the edge of the
raised pavement, and various hot infants carry calves upon their heads,
and dexterously pitch them in, while other hot infants, standing in the
carts, arrange the calves, and pack them carefully in straw. Here is a
promising young calf, not sold, whom Madame Doche unbinds. Pardon me,
Madame Doche, but I fear this mode of tying the four legs of a quadruped
together, though strictly à la mode, is not quite right. You observe,
Madame Doche, that the cord leaves deep indentations in the skin, and
that the animal is so cramped at first as not to know, or even remotely
suspect that he _is_ unbound, until you are so obliging as to kick him,
in your delicate little way, and pull his tail like a bell-rope. Then,
he staggers to his knees, not being able to stand, and stumbles about
like a drunken calf, or the horse at Franconi’s, whom you may have seen,
Madame Doche, who is supposed to have been mortally wounded in battle.
But, what is this rubbing against me, as I apostrophise Madame Doche? It
is another heated infant with a calf upon his head. ‘Pardon, Monsieur,
but will you have the politeness to allow me to pass?’ ‘Ah, sir,
willingly. I am vexed to obstruct the way.’ On he staggers, calf and
all, and makes no allusion whatever either to my eyes or limbs.
Now, the carts are all full. More straw, my Antoine, to shake over these
top rows; then, off we will clatter, rumble, jolt, and rattle, a long row
of us, out of the first town-gate, and out at the second town-gate, and
past the empty sentry-box, and the little thin square bandbox of a
guardhouse, where nobody seems to live: and away for Paris, by the paved
road, lying, a straight, straight line, in the long, long avenue of
trees. We can neither choose our road, nor our pace, for that is all
prescribed to us. The public convenience demands that our carts should
get to Paris by such a route, and no other (Napoleon had leisure to find
that out, while he had a little war with the world upon his hands), and
woe betide us if we infringe orders.
Drovers of oxen stand in the Cattle Market, tied to iron bars fixed into
posts of granite. Other droves advance slowly down the long avenue, past
the second town-gate, and the first town-gate, and the sentry-box, and
the bandbox, thawing the morning with their smoky breath as they come
along. Plenty of room; plenty of time. Neither man nor beast is driven
out of his wits by coaches, carts, waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises,
phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys, whoopings, roarings, and multitudes. No
tail-twisting is necessary—no iron pronging is necessary. There are no
iron prongs here. The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market
for calves. In due time, off the cattle go to Paris; the drovers can no
more choose their road, nor their time, nor the numbers they shall drive,
than they can choose their hour for dying in the course of nature.
Sheep next. The sheep-pens are up here, past the Branch Bank of Paris
established for the convenience of the butchers, and behind the two
pretty fountains they are making in the Market. My name is Bull: yet I
think I should like to see as good twin fountains—not to say in
Smithfield, but in England anywhere. Plenty of room; plenty of time.
And here are sheep-dogs, sensible as ever, but with a certain French air
about them—not without a suspicion of dominoes—with a kind of flavour of
moustache and beard—demonstrative dogs, shaggy and loose where an English
dog would be tight and close—not so troubled with business calculations
as our English drovers’ dogs, who have always got their sheep upon their
minds, and think about their work, even resting, as you may see by their
faces; but, dashing, showy, rather unreliable dogs: who might worry me
instead of their legitimate charges if they saw occasion—and might see it
somewhat suddenly.
The market for sheep passes off like the other two; and away they go, by
_their_ allotted road to Paris. My way being the Railway, I make the
best of it at twenty miles an hour; whirling through the now high-lighted
landscape; thinking that the inexperienced green buds will be wishing,
before long, they had not been tempted to come out so soon; and wondering
who lives in this or that château, all window and lattice, and what the
family may have for breakfast this sharp morning.
After the Market comes the Abattoir. What abattoir shall I visit first?
Montmartre is the largest. So I will go there.
The abattoirs are all within the walls of Paris, with an eye to the
receipt of the octroi duty; but, they stand in open places in the
suburbs, removed from the press and bustle of the city. They are managed
by the Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, under the inspection of the Police.
Certain smaller items of the revenue derived from them are in part
retained by the Guild for the payment of their expenses, and in part
devoted by it to charitable purposes in connexion with the trade. They
cost six hundred and eighty thousand pounds; and they return to the city
of Paris an interest on that outlay, amounting to nearly six and a-half
per cent.
Here, in a sufficiently dismantled space is the Abattoir of Montmartre,
covering nearly nine acres of ground, surrounded by a high wall, and
looking from the outside like a cavalry barrack. At the iron gates is a
small functionary in a large cocked hat. ‘Monsieur desires to see the
abattoir? Most certainly.’ State being inconvenient in private
transactions, and Monsieur being already aware of the cocked hat, the
functionary puts it into a little official bureau which it almost fills,
and accompanies me in the modest attire—as to his head—of ordinary life.
Many of the animals from Poissy have come here. On the arrival of each
drove, it was turned into yonder ample space, where each butcher who had
bought, selected his own purchases. Some, we see now, in these long
perspectives of stalls with a high over-hanging roof of wood and open
tiles rising above the walls. While they rest here, before being
slaughtered, they are required to be fed and watered, and the stalls must
be kept clean. A stated amount of fodder must always be ready in the
loft above; and the supervision is of the strictest kind. The same
regulations apply to sheep and calves; for which, portions of these
perspectives are strongly railed off. All the buildings are of the
strongest and most solid description.
After traversing these lairs, through which, besides the upper provision
for ventilation just mentioned, there may be a thorough current of air
from opposite windows in the side walls, and from doors at either end, we
traverse the broad, paved, court-yard until we come to the
slaughter-houses. They are all exactly alike, and adjoin each other, to
the number of eight or nine together, in blocks of solid building. Let
us walk into the first.
It is firmly built and paved with stone. It is well lighted, thoroughly
aired, and lavishly provided with fresh water. It has two doors opposite
each other; the first, the door by which I entered from the main yard;
the second, which is opposite, opening on another smaller yard, where the
sheep and calves are killed on benches. The pavement of that yard, I
see, slopes downward to a gutter, for its being more easily cleansed.
The slaughter-house is fifteen feet high, sixteen feet and a-half wide,
and thirty-three feet long. It is fitted with a powerful windlass, by
which one man at the handle can bring the head of an ox down to the
ground to receive the blow from the pole-axe that is to fell him—with the
means of raising the carcass and keeping it suspended during the
after-operation of dressing—and with hooks on which carcasses can hang,
when completely prepared, without touching the walls. Upon the pavement
of this first stone chamber, lies an ox scarcely dead. If I except the
blood draining from him, into a little stone well in a corner of the
pavement, the place is free from offence as the Place de la Concorde. It
is infinitely purer and cleaner, I know, my friend the functionary, than
the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Ha, ha! Monsieur is pleasant, but, truly,
there is reason, too, in what he says.
I look into another of these slaughter-houses. ‘Pray enter,’ says a
gentleman in bloody boots. ‘This is a calf I have killed this morning.
Having a little time upon my hands, I have cut and punctured this lace
pattern in the coats of his stomach. It is pretty enough. I did it to
divert myself.’—‘It is beautiful, Monsieur, the slaughterer!’ He tells
me I have the gentility to say so.
I look into rows of slaughter-houses. In many, retail dealers, who have
come here for the purpose, are making bargains for meat. There is
killing enough, certainly, to satiate an unused eye; and there are
steaming carcasses enough, to suggest the expediency of a fowl and salad
for dinner; but, everywhere, there is an orderly, clean,
well-systematised routine of work in progress—horrible work at the best,
if you please; but, so much the greater reason why it should be made the
best of. I don’t know (I think I have observed, my name is Bull) that a
Parisian of the lowest order is particularly delicate, or that his nature
is remarkable for an infinitesimal infusion of ferocity; but, I do know,
my potent, grave, and common counselling Signors, that he is forced, when
at this work, to submit himself to a thoroughly good system, and to make
an Englishman very heartily ashamed of you.
Here, within the walls of the same abattoir, in other roomy and
commodious buildings, are a place for converting the fat into tallow and
packing it for market—a place for cleansing and scalding calves’ heads
and sheep’s feet—a place for preparing tripe—stables and coach-houses for
the butchers—innumerable conveniences, aiding in the diminution of
offensiveness to its lowest possible point, and the raising of
cleanliness and supervision to their highest. Hence, all the meat that
goes out of the gate is sent away in clean covered carts. And if every
trade connected with the slaughtering of animals were obliged by law to
be carried on in the same place, I doubt, my friend, now reinstated in
the cocked hat (whose civility these two francs imperfectly acknowledge,
but appear munificently to repay), whether there could be better
regulations than those which are carried out at the Abattoir of
Montmartre. Adieu, my friend, for I am away to the other side of Paris,
to the Abattoir of Grenelle! And there I find exactly the same thing on
a smaller scale, with the addition of a magnificent Artesian well, and a
different sort of conductor, in the person of a neat little woman with
neat little eyes, and a neat little voice, who picks her neat little way
among the bullocks in a very neat little pair of shoes and stockings.
* * * * *
Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering people have
erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for common counselling
wisdom. That wisdom, assembled in the City of London, having distinctly
refused, after a debate of three days long, and by a majority of nearly
seven to one, to associate itself with any Metropolitan Cattle Market
unless it be held in the midst of the City, it follows that we shall lose
the inestimable advantages of common counselling protection, and be
thrown, for a market, on our own wretched resources. In all human
probability we shall thus come, at last, to erect a monument of folly
very like this French monument. If that be done, the consequences are
obvious. The leather trade will be ruined, by the introduction of
American timber, to be manufactured into shoes for the fallen English;
the Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely
on frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite
clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that unhappy landed
interest which is always being killed, yet is always found to be
alive—and kicking.