Within a couple of hours after dinner they
experienced colick}' pains, purging, vomiting, and these symp-
toms lasted several hours. Bread, potatoes, and water were the
only other materials they had partaken of at dinner. On
another occasion two were affected, but did not attribute the
injury to the steak until the next day, when the servant ate
what had been left of the meat, and suffered severely.” But
24
INTRODUCTION
wliether or no diseased meat was poisonous, ho thought tliero
could hardly be a question that it must be of an innutritious
character. On whom, then, did that evil chiefly fall ? Not on
the rich, but on the poor, who had the greatest need of
nutritious food.
Mr. Henley hoped it would be understood that the com-
mittee would be allowed to take evidence, and would not merely
be limited to a consideration of these bills. (Mr. Bruce
assented.) The statement of the Under Secretary was of so
giave a nature, that, if it were well founded that so large a
proportion of meat consumed in this country was diseased, very
serious inquiry was needed. (Hear, hear.) He saw an enormous
evil stated to exist, and he feai-ed there would be found great
difficulty in deciding how to deal with it. If the disease was
inqwrted from abroad, he was sorry that the evil had not been
met by stopping the importation of foreign cattle. Inspection
on arrival was not an easy task, for lung disease in an incipient
state could only be detected by auscultation, and a nice treat it
must be for an inspector to go about with a stethoscope among
a herd of wild bullocks. (Laughter.)
The bills were then respectively read a second time, and
ordered to be referred to a select committee.
KEMARKS OF THE PRESS.
(From the Daily Telegraph.)
Dinner is a very serious institution in England, and one upon
which so much depends, that we are half afraid to disseminate
the tmths revealed on Wednesday by Mr. Bruce, to a miserable
House of Commons which had not dined. Shall we also utterly
destroy the appetite of the British people, or shall we leave
ignorance to be bliss 1 Shall we turn oiu- own stomachs, and
those of the public by some plain facts about food, or shall wo
shut our mental eyes and blindfold theirs while we mutually
take “ another slice of the undercut ” ? It is one of the hard-
est problems to solve which have ever presented themselves ; if
we summon up courage to tell the truth, what will become of
“Oh, the roast beef of Old England, and oh, the Old English
INTRODUCTION.
25
roast beef” 1 Oh, indeed !— a world of dismal meaning is con-
tained in that lyric interjection, for we are told that this same
national comestible and “food of Heaven ” is slowly poisoning,
along Avith measly pork and mangy mutton, the entire body
politic. Yes, we must act the part of Sancho Panza’s physician
at Barataria, and sternly order from the table the dishes that
are so appetising to a hardset Briton. “ Beef-steak and oyster
sauce ” 1 Don’t think of it, we say ! The beef may have been
a bullock that died of pleuro-pneumonia after his arrival from
Holland, and the lungs may have been full of fetid matter and
poison by the pint measure. “ Loin of pork with apple sauce,
does the hungi’y public hopefully suggest ? Let it alone, good
public ! That pork, when a pig, may have died a dry death of
hydatids in his liver, and aU his flesh, whether disguised irith
culinary arts or bmied in the ob
Page 17
Presented as published in 1891. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Within a couple of hours after dinner they experienced colicky pains, purging, vomiting, and these symptoms lasted several hours. Bread, potatoes, and water were the only other materials they had partaken of at dinner. On another occasion two were affected, but did not attribute the injury to the steak until the next day, when the servant ate what had been left of the meat, and suffered severely.” But
whether or no diseased meat was poisonous, he thought tliero could hardly be a question that it must be of an innutritious character. On whom, then, did that evil chiefly fall ? Not on the rich, but on the poor, who had the greatest need of nutritious food.
Mr. Henley hoped it would be understood that the committee would be allowed to take evidence, and would not merely be limited to a consideration of these bills. (Mr. Bruce assented.) The statement of the Under Secretary was of so giave a nature, that, if it were well founded that so large a proportion of meat consumed in this country was diseased, very serious inquiry was needed. (Hear, hear.) He saw an enormous evil stated to exist, and he feared there would be found great difficulty in deciding how to deal with it. If the disease was imported from abroad, he was sorry that the evil had not been met by stopping the importation of foreign cattle. Inspection on arrival was not an easy task, for lung disease in an incipient state could only be detected by auscultation, and a nice treat it must be for an inspector to go about with a stethoscope among a herd of wild bullocks. (Laughter.)
The bills were then respectively read a second time, and ordered to be referred to a select committee.
KEMARKS OF THE PRESS.
(From the Daily Telegraph.)
Dinner is a very serious institution in England, and one upon which so much depends, that we are half afraid to disseminate the tmths revealed on Wednesday by Mr. Bruce, to a miserable House of Commons which had not dined. Shall we also utterly destroy the appetite of the British people, or shall we leave ignorance to be bliss 1 Shall we turn oiu- own stomachs, and those of the public by some plain facts about food, or shall wo shut our mental eyes and blindfold theirs while we mutually take “ another slice of the undercut ” ? It is one of the hardest problems to solve which have ever presented themselves ; if we summon up courage to tell the truth, what will become of “Oh, the roast beef of Old England, and oh, the Old English
roast beef” 1 Oh, indeed !— a world of dismal meaning is contained in that lyric interjection, for we are told that this same national comestible and “food of Heaven ” is slowly poisoning, along Avith measly pork and mangy mutton, the entire body politic. Yes, we must act the part of Sancho Panza’s physician at Barataria, and sternly order from the table the dishes that are so appetising to a hardset Briton. “ Beef-steak and oyster sauce ” 1 Don’t think of it, we say ! The beef may have been a bullock that died of pleuro-pneumonia after his arrival from Holland, and the lungs may have been full of fetid matter and poison by the pint measure. “ Loin of pork with apple sauce, does the hungi’y public hopefully suggest ? Let it alone, good public ! That pork, when a pig, may have died a dry death of hydatids in his liver, and aU his flesh, whether disguised irith culinary arts or bmied in the ob