'I should think five hundred pounds would do, at all events for the present. Of course I will be as careful with it as I can, for your interests and Angela's are identical; but you may as well have things good at first, since they are the more economical in the long-run. The money you can let me have whenever it is convenient to you.'
'You shall have the sum you mention in about three weeks,' said Isaac.
Angela now came in dressed for a walk, so Herbert and Isaac broke up their conference, and the three went out together.
[IMPORTED BEEF AND MUTTON.]
A resolute attempt was made a dozen years ago to import fresh beef in various forms from Buenos Ayres; and as the meat was sold at a comparatively low price, there arose high expectations on the subject. The well-meant attempt failed. It would not do. The meat presented an unpleasant appearance. The working classes in this country did not like the flavour, even if the appearance had been good; they would not buy, although the price was low; and thus the affair died out after a few months.
Soon after the failure of Buenos Ayres, our own Australian colony of New South Wales made a bid for the favour of English beef-eaters. Mr Mort, an enterprising citizen of Sydney, introduced Nicolle's freezing process for preserving fresh meat in an untainted state. He was sanguine that the same ship might convey beef and mutton from Australia to England and emigrants from England to Australia, thereby conferring a double benefit on the colonies. Queensland and Victoria were also on the qui vive, ready to find a market for their surplus live-stock in the old mother-country, if events presented favourable symptoms. The freezing process was not by any means the only one tried in Australia. One was an adaptation of Appert's plan of putting fresh meat into tins and drawing out all the air; a second was to exclude warmth by packing in ice; a third was to exclude moisture in such way as to pack the meat in as dry a state as possible. A large trade was gradually formed by a Sydney Company for preserving meat for the English market—not fresh joints in bulk, but partly cooked in tins. The oxen and sheep were slaughtered in abattoirs of improved construction, skinned, boned, and cut up on large tables; the meat was scalded by steam in large open trays, put into tins, and the tins exposed to a temperature of 230° F., in a bath containing chloride of lime dissolved in the water; then sealed up, exposed to a second bath somewhat hotter, and finally to a cold bath. Not only was steamed or parboiled beef and mutton prepared in this way, but the establishment also sent out tins of roasted, cured, spiced beef, haricot of mutton, and so forth. We cannot go into particulars, and have only to say that the efforts, however meritorious, have not been a commercial success.
It may be stated as a well-known fact that the people of Great Britain will not, as a general rule, buy inferior kinds of butcher-meat. They are all glad to purchase at a low price, but the quality must be good, the look of the meat good, the smell good. We should confidently say that no people on the face of the earth are such connoisseurs in good beef and mutton as the English, down even to the humblest classes. In point of fact, the working classes, as they are called, are more fastidious as regards quality and superior cuts than persons of distinction. Laying down this as a rule, it is throwing away trouble and capital to try to serve the English with anything short of the best fresh meat, as usually obtained from butchers. Frozen meat will not do, for it will not keep. Tinned meat half-cooked, and however well spiced, is also not the thing. One may regret the prejudices often entertained on this score. But for the sake of all parties it is best to acknowledge the fact.
The only expedient likely to be successful is that of importing fresh meat from the United States, owing to the comparatively short duration of the voyage and the several fleets of fine steamers belonging to capitalists, who are never slack in throwing themselves into any trade that promises to be fairly remunerating. The proceedings, in brief, are managed as follows. Live-stock, brought to New York by rail from the central and western states of America, are conveyed to well-arranged abattoirs, where they are quickly slaughtered, skinned, &c. Several hundred carcases are put at once into a large cool chamber, where they are kept for a day or two—the period depending on the state of the weather. They are then quartered, wrapped up in coarse canvas, and conveyed to the steamer, drawn up alongside a quay or wharf. A compartment is set aside for the reception of the meat, with an ice-chamber at one end. A current of fresh air, filtered through cotton-wool, is driven over the ice by a steam-worked fan or blast, and thence over the masses of meat. About forty tons of ice are shipped for keeping cool the carcases of a hundred and fifty cattle: reduced probably to a third or quarter of this amount by melting during the voyage. According to the quantity of fresh air forced through the ice-chamber, so is the degree of temperature produced. After many experiments, an opinion has been arrived at that a freezing temperature is neither necessary nor desirable; four or five degrees above that point are preferred, the meat arriving in a pure and fresh state at Liverpool. The quantity shipped at once is sometimes very large. The Wyoming steamer, for instance, brought over at one time in the middle of the recent month of February two thousand three hundred quarters of beef and the carcases of four hundred sheep. In one week a million and a quarter pounds of meat were brought from New York to Liverpool.