Glasgow, as opening direct by the Clyde to the Atlantic, with its fleet of steamers and enterprising traders, bids fair to be a rival to Liverpool in the American meat-traffic. Every week there are paragraphs in the newspapers announcing fresh arrivals. We quote the following as a specimen from the Scotsman of March 7: 'The extension of the American meat-trade at all the larger towns in Scotland has been very marked during the past month, and the import has been quite unequal to the demand. The steamers belonging to the Anchor line of weekly mail packets, which have been bringing from eight hundred to a thousand quarters of fresh meat each voyage, have been compelled to increase their cool-meat cell accommodation by fully one-half. The State line of weekly steamers are also being fitted up with the necessary apparatus for this traffic, and the first steamer of that line with fresh meat—six hundred quarters—was reported last night at the Clyde. The Anchor Line mail-steamer Anchoria also arrived yesterday. The latter vessel brings the largest cargo of fresh meat yet imported into Scotland, having on board one thousand six hundred quarters beef and two hundred carcases of sheep. The two consignments (two thousand two hundred quarters) are nearly equal to any previous fortnight's supply. About one-half of this quantity of fresh meat will be sold in Glasgow market, and the other half will be despatched to Edinburgh, Newcastle, Dundee, and other large towns. In Glasgow and Greenock there has been a further extension of shops for the sale of American fresh meat. The Glasgow butchers are now pretty extensive buyers of the imported beef, and they have again had to lower their prices for home-fed meat by 1d. per lb., making a total reduction on roast and steaks of 3d. per lb., and on other sorts of 2d. per lb. The American meat, however, is still from 1d. to 2d. per lb. cheaper than the medium home sorts. During February the American meat imports at Glasgow, which may be considered as the landing-place for Scotland, amounted to the following large aggregates: 4650 quarters fresh beef, 500 sheep, 2440 tierces salted beef, 1830 barrels salted pork, 1037 barrels hams, 700 barrels tongues, 9300 boxes bacon, and 20,500 cases of tinned (preserved) meat. In the previous month (January) the fresh meat imported aggregated 3728 quarters and 620 sheep; while in December the quantity was about one-half that of January. There is nearly as great an advance in the import of corned meat, bacon, and salted beef and pork. 950 barrels of tallow and 700 barrels of lard were imported last month. Butter and cheese also form an important item in the cargoes from New York; and last month there was an aggregate of 2500 boxes of cheese and 7050 packages of butter brought in six steamers.'
While Glasgow is the source of supply to various places in Scotland, Liverpool sends consignments by railways to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, and other large centres of population. Some part of the conveyance is managed by aid of Acklom's patent refrigerating wagons. These vehicles, constructed and fitted to keep always cool in the interior, are drawn up to the ship's side at the docks, laden with meat, horsed through the streets to a railway depôt, placed upon trucks, conveyed to any other station, dismounted from the trucks, and driven to warehouses and storehouses. If there be continuous rail from the quay to the final warehouse, so much the better.
What do the butchers and the public think of this beef and mutton? It is now known that the meat should be cooked and eaten as soon as possible after being landed, else it loses somewhat of its good flavour. The newspapers stated that a consignment of two hundred quarters of beef to Edinburgh became deteriorated towards the last, by remaining too long in shops or stores unprovided with cooling appliances.
A remarkable enterprise has just been commenced in London in connection with this subject. An 'Australian Meat Agency Company' has existed for several years; it imports canistered provisions of all kinds from our antipodean colonies; but as Sydney and Melbourne have not yet surmounted the difficulties of establishing a profitable transmission of fresh joints of meat to England, the Company has laid itself open to the reception of such meat from any country. Underneath the vast Cannon Street terminus of the South-eastern Railway are ranges of brick vaults which the Meat Company has just taken at an annual rental. Fresh air from the river is admitted into a refrigerating chamber, whence, after being cooled down, it passes into other chambers where the meat is placed on broad open shelves; a small steam-engine forces the air over the ice in the refrigerating chambers, and thence into the several meat chambers. A sloping road leads up from the vaulted chambers to the railway level, and there are four landing-stages from the river—thus affording considerable facilities for the arrival and departure of large consignments of meat. The expectation is that the meat will keep cool and good for several days, instead of being forced occasionally on an unwilling market to avert spoiling; and if this expectation be realised, the same plan may be adopted for poultry, fruit, and dairy produce.
The retailing at present is a puzzle. We are told from time to time that the butchers cry down the American meat in order to keep up the high price of English and Scotch beef and mutton; that they sometimes sell slightly tainted English meat under the name of American, to bring down the fair fame of the latter; and that more frequently they buy the foreign meat and sell it again as English. The butchers deny these allegations, and the public are left to find out the truth for themselves the best way they can. At the Cold Stores, as they are called, of the Meat Agency Company, above described, the price for sides, quarters, and large joints varies from about sixpence-halfpenny to ninepence per pound—small joints being higher per pound than large, and meat for roasting higher than meat for boiling. The demand for the latter being much less than that for the former, a rapid sale for the whole is found to be difficult, unless buyers are tempted by a lower price for round, brisket, and other boiling-pieces. As a small joint of the best roasting beef is tenpence per pound, the reduction below the price for English beef is certainly not considerable, especially as the sellers do not send the meat to the consumers' houses. If the trade establishes itself on a firm footing, there will probably be retail stores in various parts of London (and other large towns) for the sale of American meat; or else the regular butchers will sell American as well as English meat, each at its own proper price. One thing is certain, as already hinted, that unless the Americans send first-rate qualities of meat, they need not send it at all. Another thing they must attend to is, that in cutting up the meat it must be neatly dressed. On this score we have heard serious complaints. The quarters of beef are too often not properly trimmed for market, at least not sufficiently so to please English wholesale dealers.
Other nations are striving to ascertain whether they can obtain a share in this new meat-trade. A French Company has built a ship called La Frigorifique, to ply between Buenos Ayres and Brest; it contains cool chambers which will keep meat at any desired temperature. The process adopted is that of M. Tellier. Methylic ether, like ammonia, evaporates rapidly, and absorbs heat from neighbouring bodies in so doing; the vapour passing through tubes in a cylinder cools down the air outside the tubes; the cooled air passes into chambers in the hold, where the meat is either hung up or put on shelves. The methylic ether can be used over and over again with only little waste. The hope of the Company is to be able to stow in the ship the meat of a thousand head of cattle, bring it from Buenos Ayres to Brest in a little over a month, and sell it at about two-thirds the price of French meat. At the time we are writing, the Frigorifique is making her first voyage; on the principle that 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating,' we must wait awhile to learn the result.
Some of the Liverpool steamers are, it is reported, being fitted up with refrigerating apparatus for bringing freshly killed meat from Spain. The continental railways are organising a plan to bring meat from Hungary in three days in refrigerating cars, at a freight-charge of a little over a halfpenny per pound, to Ostend or some port whence it could be shipped to England. Moscow is said to be able to buy fairly good beef at fourpence per pound, and is calculating whether London could obtain some of it at about sevenpence.
The new move certainly has some lively elements in it, and we shall watch with some interest its development. As yet, the introduction of huge cargoes of fresh meat has had no sensible effect in lowering the standard market prices. To some extent this may be explained by the suspended importation of live oxen from the continent, on account of the dreaded cattle disease. Unless, however, the importation of fresh meat from America or elsewhere attains a very gigantic scale, we do not anticipate any very marked reduction of prices. From the increasing wealth and population in the British Islands, the demand for meat will long far outrun the means of native supply. The agricultural interest may as yet keep itself tolerably at ease on the subject.