d good, the want of meat would in many instances
not be felt, and in others, the consumption of it might be lessened with
great advantage. To confine cows with a view to increase their supply of
milk, is as injurious to the quality of it, as the confinement of
animals is in other instances. The over feeding them also with a similar
view, is an injurious practice. Cleanliness too is no less essential to
keeping them in a wholesome state, than to animals intended to be
slaughtered. It is no uncommon effect of confining and cramming
animals, that they become diseased in the liver, besides acquiring a
general tendency to putridity in their juices and muscular substances,
from want of air and exercise, excess of feeding and bad food, and the
dirt in which they live. A brute, no more than a human being, can digest
above a certain quantity of food, to convert it into actual nourishment;
and good chyle can only be produced from wholesome food, cleanliness,
air, and exercise. To be well fleshed rather than fat, is the desirable
state of animals destined for slaughter. There will always be with this
a sufficient proportion of fat; and labouring by artificial means to
produce more, is only encreasing that part of animal substance, which
from its gross indigestible nature is not proper for human diet, unless
in a very limited degree. Venison, which in its domestic state is never
fatted like other animals; game, and every wild animal proper for food;
possess superior qualities to the tame, from the total contrast in their
habits, more than from the food they eat. They have an extensive range
in the open air, take much exercise, and choose their own sustenance,
the good effects of which are very evident in a short delicate texture
of flesh found only in them. Their juices and flavour are more pure, and
their fat is far more delicious than that of home-bred animals. The
superiority of Welch mutton and Scotch beef is owing to a similar cause,
and is still more in point than the former, as a contrast between
animals of the same species under different management. The preferences
just mentioned are not a mere matter of taste, which might readily be
dispensed with, but are founded on more important considerations. A
short delicate texture renders the meat more digestible, in a very high
degree, than the coarse, heavy, stringy kind of substance produced by
the misapplied art of man. A pure animal juice too, is something more
than a luxury; f