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has been an appreciable decrease, both in the amount sold by each purveyor, as
well as in the number of people who sell catsmeat.
Besides, in market places in the district, scrags of mutton are sold for 2d. to
2½d. a pound, a price as low as that of catsmeat. It is true it is frozen meat,
but no one can deny that it is more nutritious, and more palatable than catsmeat.
The retail price of catsmeat varies from two pence to two pence halfpenny a
pound. The usual amount expended by each customer for catsmeat in this Borough
is a farthing to a halfpenny, and rarely does it exceed the latter sum. Occasionally
a customer buys one pennyworth. Only ten purveyors had sold a pound of
catsmeat at a time, and then it was to neighbouring tradesmen who were well
known to them, and were also known to keep dogs. Three purveyors only sold
fourpennyworth at a time, and as in the case of the one pound customers, the
buyers were not only well known, but were also known to keep large dogs as well.
It is curious that in some streets catsmeat dealers sell catsmeat at every house
while in other streets hardly a single occupant buys catsmeat. As I have already
stated, throughout the whole Borough about 30 horse tongues are sold every
week. There is a considerable amount of waste attached to tongues, so that
dealers prefer not to have them, and they are sold as cheap rough meat for dogs.
I have interviewed every single dealer in catsmeat in the Borough, and each
one was emphatic in his statement that none of his customers bought it for human
food. Even the very poorest people insist on the farthing's worth being wrapped
up in paper, and then they carry it home in a gingerly fashion as if it were
something unclean and revolting.
It is true that when I inquired at two shops near the docks, I was told that
sometimes foreign sailors ask to be served with catsmeat, but they are told that it
is not meant for human food. Some persist, admitting that they know it is horseflesh,
and that they have been accustomed to eat it abroad. They are never served.
This happens in two shops about once a year, and has never occurred in any of the
other places.
At present there are three shops in the Borough in which human food is sold as
well as catsmeat. In two of them, however, the catsmeat is not horseflesh, but
lungs of sheep, ox, &c., which are boiled for the purpose. In the third, tea is the
only article that is sold for human consumption, and in addition, feathers are
curled—a curious combination of trades, the purveying of cats meat and tea, and
feather-curling.
There has been a great improvement in this respect during the last few years.
Eight years ago a man who sold human food as well as catsmeat in several shops in