The London public are not of the opinion of Shelley, that flesh of bullocks and sheep, when properly cooked, is the true cause of original sin, and that to regain the innocence of the Garden of Eden we have but to have recourse solely to a vegetarian diet. This doctrine has never been a popular one, and from the earliest time the contrary has found favour in the eyes of men. With what gusto does Homer describe the banquets before the walls of Troy, when heroes were the guests, and where divine Achilles was the head cook! The custom of eating baked and boiled is one of the few good things we have to thank antiquity for. Our jolly Scandinavian forefathers considered eating horse rump steak a sign of orthodox paganism; and at this very moment, if the Times be a correct index of the national sentiment, the great question that agitates the mind of the middle class public, that public in which, according to general opinion, all the piety, and patriotism, and wisdom of the land is concentrated, is not as to peace or war—not as to Reform or Social Science—or education or religion—not as to how the vice and impiety of the day may be grappled with and reclaimed—but as to how a man may genteelly dine his friends, and, with an income of a few hundreds, provide a repast that shall rival that of one whose income consists of as many thousands. Really, the force of folly can no further go. Hence, then, it is clear that to the present customs of society a cattle-market of some kind is essential. At one time it was held in Smithfield. There it was a dangerous nuisance. The wise men of London did as they generally do in such matters—first denied that it was a nuisance at all, and when they were driven from that position, and compelled to yield to public indignation, moved it a little further off.

It is early morn, and we wend our way to the New Cattle-market, in Holloway, near the model gaol, and lying in that terra incognita stretching away to Camden-town and the steep of Highgate-hill, where juvenile cockneys some thirty years ago played, and called the waste Copenhagen-fields. There the New Cattle-market is erected. In shape it consists of a long square, if I may be allowed such an expression, on every side surrounded with lofty walls, and covers many acres of ground. In the centre of the market is a lofty clock-tower, and around it are shops devoted to the sale of horse gear and cattle-physic, and the banking-houses, where the cattle are paid for and the money deposited, chief amongst which is that of an active alderman of the city of London, and ex-Lord Mayor and M.P. The animals are ranged in pairs, others tied to rails all around; and on the other side are layers, where the animals that are not sold are lodged on payment of a trifling sum, and slaughtering-houses. The salesmen, who are the middle-men, receive the cattle from the drover, and sell them to the butcher, and pay the money into the bank. The extent of the market is about ten acres. The market is the property of the Corporation, who exact a toll of 3½d. for each beast, and 4d. a score of sheep; then there is a further charge of 1s. a pen. As there are 1,800 pens and 1,450 rails, this rent must amount to a respectable sum. In round numbers, the accommodation provided is for 25,000 sheep and 7,300 beasts. The summer is the best time for seeing the market, as in the winter months it is not so numerously attended. The market opens at two, a.m., and closes at two, p.m. Any buying and selling after that hour is most strictly prohibited. The entrance into the market is not open, as in Smithfield, but through iron gates, guarded by vigilant police. The public-houses in the neighbourhood abound in signs not known in more fashionable districts. Here is the “Butchers’ Arms,” there the “White Horse;” here the “Lamb” Tavern, there the “Red Lion;” and great is the business they do on Mondays and Thursdays. The men are of a class not visible elsewhere in London. Farmers, graziers, jockeys, jobbers, pig-drivers, salesmen, drovers abound here, whose speciality is to know

“QuÆ cura bovum, qui cultus habendo,
Sit pecori.”

However early you may come in the morning, you may be sure they are there before you. At twelve o’clock on Sunday night the Sunday is supposed to be over, and the poor beasts, who have been shut up ever since twelve on Saturday night, are released from their confinement. Now comes the difficulty and confusion. How can the beasts belonging to one man be prevented from mixing with those of another? How can they be got into proper order? I fear the answer must be chiefly by a system of terrorism and physical force. Those wonderfully sagacious brutes the drovers’ dogs know every animal, know where he is to go, know where he ought not to go, and take care that, somehow or other, the object aimed at by the defunct Administrative Reform Association should be achieved, and that the right one should be in the right place. Of a night the scene is something extraordinary. The lowing of oxen, the tremulous cries of the sheep, the barking of dogs, the rattling of sticks on the bodies and heads of the animals, the rough and ragged appearance of the men, the shouts of the drovers, and the flashing about of torches, present altogether a wild and terrific combination. But all this is over by daylight, when the buyers come upon the scene, and there is an appearance of order and cleanliness, a strong contrast to Smithfield, as your eye glances from one row to another of heads gathered from Northamptonshire, from Leicestershire, from Scotland, from Ireland, from the fertile plains of far-away Holstein, or the pastures of Spain, still more remote. The latter animals it seems almost a pity to slaughter; they have something of the appearance of the buffalo, minus his shaggy head of horrid hair; they are cream-coloured, and with their long horns must be a very pretty ornament for a gentleman’s park. Our foreign trade in cattle is growing very large. In the year 1857 there were imported into the United Kingdom, oxen and bulls, 53,277; cows, 12,371; calves, 27,315; sheep, 162,324; lambs, 14,883; swine, 10,678. The greater proportion come from Holland and Denmark, and are put upon the rail and at once sent off to London. There was a time when we were told this would be the ruin of the farmer; yet, according to the speech of Mr. Grey, a north country agriculturist, the other day, it appears that growing flesh is the most remunerative employment for the farmer at the present time; and in spite of all this foreign importation, we may observe that meat is high, and that Paterfamilias, blessed, as he is sure to be, with a small income and a large family, finds it difficult to make both ends meet. The returns of the cattle-markets tell us that the population of London consume annually 277,000 bullocks, 30,000 calves, 1,480,000 sheep, and 34,000 pigs. Mr. Hicks estimates the value of these at between seven and eight millions sterling. The buyers here are the larger class of dealers; the smaller ones go to the dead-meat market in Newgate-street, which is blocked up by them from four in the morning till breakfast-time. If we come here on a Friday, between ten and four, we shall find a market for the sale of horses and donkeys—a market much patronised by costermongers. Let us add, in conclusion, that the New Cattle-market bids fair to be as much of a nuisance as the old, and that, sooner or later, there must be a dead-meat market for London, and that alone; otherwise we shall have a repetition of the sad tragedy to which the poet refers, when he writes of “the cow with the crumpled horn, who tossed the maiden all forlorn.”