The Metropolitan Cattle Market, in Caledonian Road, Islington, is the largest market in London, covering fifteen acres, and having three acres of slaughter houses. This market cost one million four hundred and sixty thousand pounds, and cannot be surpassed by any other market in the world. The yearly receipts at this market was as follows: 360,000 beef cattle, 36,000 calves, 1,900,000 sheep, and 37,650 pigs. Besides this vast amount of meat there was nearly as much more received at the Newgate, Leadenhall, and Whitechapel meat markets.
The other articles of food, brought to the London markets, are estimated by those who profess to have nearly accurate information, as follows: Seven million head of game and poultry, six hundred and fifty million pounds of fish, two hundred and fifty million barrels of oysters, and two hundred and fifty million cubic feet of eggs. This last item rather staggered me, but the other estimated quantities are, I am assured, rather below than above the aggregate annual consumption.
The inspections of the London markets are made very rigidly, and I do not wonder at the necessity for a strict watchfulness, when I find that, in 1868, 160,340 pounds of meat, and 1,963 head of game and poultry, were seized by the officers as being unfit for human food. This amount consisted in part of 1,200 sheep, 186 pigs, 73 calves, 1,100 quarters of beef, 762 joints of meat, 462 tame fowls, 121 wild fowl, 300 geese, 290 ducks, 316 pigeons, 15 lambs, and only thirty pounds of sausages. There were also 239 rabbits, 111 hares, 75 haunches and quarters of venison, 84 partridges, and four pounds of pickled pork. It will be seen that there was a very great deal of beef and mutton to a very little pickled pork and sausage. All of the game, and most of the poultry seized, was putrid, and of the meat 108,000 pounds were diseased, while 21,000 pounds were stinking; 36,240 pounds of meat being taken from animals that had died of natural causes. As soon as the meat is seized it is sprinkled with creosote of coal tar, which checks putrefaction, and at the same time prevents it from being used as food, after which it is sent to the bone-boilers and destroyed.
Besides the enormous amount of food received at the markets already enumerated, there was also received at the Borough Market, Southwark, Smithfield New Market, Newport Market, Cumberland, Portman, Clare, and the Potato Markets, by railway, in the same year, 17,000 tons of meat of all kinds, 100,000 tons of potatoes, 14,000 tons of fish, 15,000 tons of vegetables, and 60,000 tons of grain, wherewith to feed the Londoners.
THE SMITHFIELD POLICE STATION.
Before daybreak is the best time to see the Markets of London in all their bustle and brisk traffic, and one summer morning I accordingly took a cab from the Langham Hotel and told the sleepy driver to take me to the New Smithfield Market, which is convenient to Newgate Prison. We dashed madly in the gray of the morning (it was not yet more than four o'clock) through Regent street, up Oxford street, over the Holborn Viaduct, and so on to the Smithfield Police Station, which is situated at a few rods distant from the place where the Cock Lane Ghost was first discovered.
I had been directed by Inspector Bailey, of the Old Jewry office, to call at this police station, and he informed me that I should find a special policeman there at my disposal to show me the markets, and procure me any information I might desire in regard to them.
The Smithfield Police Station is like most London police stations, a very quiet and not pretentious edifice, just in the shadow of Smithfield New Market.
There was a little desk and a little railing, behind which sat a little man in a blue uniform of pilot cloth, and behind the little man were hung upon the plainly whitewashed walls a collection of handcuffs, pistols, and knives, all of which were deodands to the law. There were also placards, offering rewards for all kinds of offenders, thieves, forgers, murderers, and embezzlers, and giving detailed descriptions of their persons and clothing when last seen. These placards covered the walls, but did not add much to the appearance of the apartment. On producing my letter of introduction from Inspector Bailey to the Sergeant in command—who treated me with much civility, a bell was rung by the latter, and a policeman in uniform appeared, my old friend Ralfe, whom the Sergeant addressed as follows:
"Ralfe, you are to take this gentleman all through Smithfield Market, and show him the sights, and then you can transfer him to some one else to have him taken through Billingsgate Market, and after that he may take a look at Covent Garden Market, if he so desires. Show him everything that you can, then report to me back again."