Curled round his head his tail, and fell asleep,
Lapped in sweet dreams, and left us here to weep.
Yet pleased to know, that ere he sank to rest,
As far as mortal cats are, he was blest.
The horse, even though he may have won a fortune for his master, as a rule goes literally to the dogs at last. Some few of the wonders of the turf have escaped that indignity. A plain stone inscribed simply ‘Sir Peter,’ tells visitors to Knowsley, Sir Peter Teazle lies beneath it. A sculptured stone, rifled from a cardinal’s monument, overlooks the grave of Emilius at Easby Abbey. A cedar, planted by a once famous jockey, rises hard by the resting-place of Bay-Middleton and Crucifix; Kingston reposes under the shade of a grand oak at Eltham; Blair-Athol, the pride of Malton, lies embowered at Cobham; and green is the grave of Amato, well within hail of the course he traversed triumphantly. The skeleton of Eclipse is still, we believe, on view at Cannons, but it must be minus at least one hoof, since King William IV. gave a piece of plate, with a hoof of Eclipse set in gold, to be run for at Ascot in 1832; the trophy being carried off by Lord Chesterfield’s Priam. Equine mementoes usually take this form, and many a sideboard can show the polished hoof of a famous racehorse. The Prince of Wales is said to possess a hoof of the charger that bore Nolan to his death at Balaklava; it is surmounted with a small silver figure of the Captain, carrying the fatal order for the advance of the Light Brigade. An interesting military souvenir enough; but not so interesting as a polished and shod hoof, mounted so as to serve as a snuff-box, the property of the Guards’ Club; for this bears the inscription: ‘Hoof of Marengo, rare charger of Napoleon, ridden by him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, in the campaign of Russia, and lastly at Waterloo;’ while on the margin of the silver shoe is to be read: ‘Marengo was wounded in the near hip at Waterloo, when his great master was on him, in the hollow road in advance of the French position. He had been frequently wounded before in other battles.’
SOME FOOD-NOTES.
We have received the following notes from a gentleman—an occasional contributor—who devotes much of his attention to such matters, making them indeed an especial and constant study.
The Antipodean Rabbit Nuisance.—That which for several years past has been the bane of agriculturists at the antipodes, is not unlikely to prove in the end something akin to a blessing. Rabbits in many places, notwithstanding what has been done to exterminate them, are nearly as numerous as ever; but instead of killing them by means of poison and burying them in the ground, they are now systematically ‘trapped,’ and, being cooked and tinned, command a large sale. At the Western Meat-preserving Company’s Works, Colac, Victoria, as many as seventeen thousand pairs of rabbits are dealt with in the course of the early weeks of the season, which, it may be explained, lasts for a period of seven months; and although the supply diminishes as the season progresses, over three hundred thousand pairs are annually prepared for sale, finding a ready market. A large number of persons are employed during the continuance of this industry; no fewer than three hundred and fifty people obtaining remunerative work in connection with this one establishment. On an average, over five thousand two-pound tins are turned out every day within the period indicated. These are made up for sale in three different ways—as plain rabbits, as rabbits cooked with onions, and rabbits done up with bacon; and for each description there is now setting in a large European demand. Many of the men engaged in the rabbit-work at Colac are exceedingly dexterous, and work with great rapidity, some individual hands among them being able to skin with ease one hundred pairs of rabbits in an hour. In order to gain a wager, one very expert person skinned four hundred and twenty-eight of these animals in sixty minutes! It should be mentioned, that before being skinned, the heads and feet of the conies are chopped off. Work of every kind is performed by the most cleanly methods, and only the best animals are selected to be tinned, while none are sent out without being carefully examined. The trappers are paid by results, and are, as a rule, welcome to visit those farms which are overrun with the pest. In the earlier weeks of the season, a gang of expert trappers will each earn over five pounds a week. The rabbits as they are caught are slung across poles in convenient places, and then lifted and conveyed in carts to ‘the works.’ There are several establishments of the kind in Victoria, and hopes are now being entertained by farmers of a speedy deliverance from the rabbit nuisance, as the large numbers which are being killed must in time tell on the breeding supplies. Similar establishments are also about to be started in New Zealand.
Edible Snails.—None but those who have made special inquiry into the subject are aware of the great dimensions which the continental snail-trade has of late assumed. Many tons of these vine-fed delicacies reach Paris every year during the snail season, which lasts from September to about April, during some part of which period under natural circumstances the animals would be asleep. In this country there would be a universal shudder, if it were proposed to add the common garden-snail to the national commissariat, no matter how attractive might be the shape assumed by the Escargot de Bourgogne, or other snail of the orchard or vineyard; yet we eat countless quantities of whelks and periwinkles, which are not such clean-feeding animals as the snails of the garden. A recent authority states that enormous quantities of snails are forwarded annually from Marseilles and Genoa to Paris, and that tens of thousands of these creatures find their way to the markets of Bordeaux, Lyons, Vienna, and Munich. Such is the demand, that many persons now ‘cultivate’ snails for the markets, and find the business a remunerative one. As many as twenty or thirty thousand can be bred in a very small space.
The Conger Eel.—This fish has of late attracted a good deal of attention, from its having been asserted that it was frequently made into turtle-soup. Whether that be so or not, the conger eel is in reality one of our most valuable food-fishes. There is, unfortunately, a prejudice in the public mind against it. In all continental fish-markets—at least in those situated on seas which contain the fish—a plentiful supply of congers may always be had. The writer has seen hundreds of them in the markets at Dieppe, Boulogne, and Paris, and in the cuisine of France the conger occupies a prominent place. It can be converted into excellent soup, and may be cooked in various other palatable ways: it may be roasted, stewed, or broiled, or made into a succulent pie. In Guernsey and Jersey, its flesh is highly esteemed, as being adaptable to the culinary art in an eminent degree. This fish ought to be much more plentifully exposed for sale than it is; and if our fishermen found a market for it, it would no doubt be so. It is a most prolific animal, yielding its eggs in literal millions. A specimen which weighed twenty-eight pounds possessed a roe of the weight of twenty-three ounces, which was computed to contain the almost incredible number of fifteen millions of eggs! Mr Buckland, in one of his fishery Reports, says: ‘What becomes of this enormous number of eggs, is unknown to man; they probably form the food of many small sea-creatures, especially crabs. They are exceedingly minute.’ How curious it seems that the common herring, which yields on the average about thirty thousand ova, should be so plentiful, and the conger, which contains many millions of eggs, should be comparatively so scarce.