to two tons of diseased meat every week. Last year we seized 110,046 lbs. of meat, of which 78,697 lbs. were diseased, and 13,944 lbs. from animals that had died. We often pursue the offenders into a court of justice, and have them fined or imprisoned; but I feel that the mischief should be stopped before it reaches the markets. Officers are wanted to examine the cattle before they are slaughtered. As to the effects of such meat on the human subject, I have seen many cases of illness from it. One of these is sufficiently important to bring under your notice. In the month of November, 1860, a part of a diseased cow was bought in Newgate market. It came from one of the cow-houses in London. It was bought by a sausage-maker of Kingsland, and, as is commonly the case with very bad meat, it was made up into sausages. Sixty-six persons partook of the sausages, and sixty-four of them were made very ill. They were purged, became sick, giddy, and the vital powers were seriously prostrated, and they lay in many cases for hours in a case of collapse, like people with cholera. One man died, and I was requested by the coroner to inquire into the matter. I obtained some of the sausages, thinking that a mineral poison might be present, but I could discover none; and the whole history of the case showed that it was diseased meat which had done the work. Again, Dr. Livingstone tells us that whenever the natives of Africa eat the flesh of an animal that has died from pleuro-pneumonia, no matter how the flesh is cooked, they suffer from carbuncle. Now, it is a very remarkable fact that boils and carbuncles have been most prevalent in this country for several years past. The Registrar-General for Scotland has drawn attention to this fact."

And Professor Gamgee said:

"My own observations confirm the opinions of the eminent authorities just quoted. I have known in many instances where meat supplied to students in lodging-houses

in this city has led to vomiting, purging, and severe colic. In the majority of instances such meat was cooked in the form of beefsteak. Three of my own students were affected simultaneously one day in December last. 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."

Such startling facts should awaken the attention of every community that has to depend upon a general market for its meats. In this city we believe the evil, if known, would be truly alarming. But without any organized plan to prevent the sale of improper foods, the market-men have it their own way, and even go so far as to retail such articles on the street. "Meat for boarders" was for a long time the suggestive "sign overhanging a large meat-stall in the neighborhood of the sailors' boarding-houses. In plain words it would have read: “Diseased meat sold cheaply." The remedy for this evil is to be found in the organization of bureaux for food inspection. Slaughtering should be concentrated in well-appointed abattoirs, and skilled inspectors should examine every animal before and during the process of slaughtering. All diseased animals and affected carcasses would thus be excluded from market, and this terrible crime against the laboring classes would be effectually prevented.

XXXVI.

RIOTS AND THEIR PREVENTION.

A

MONG the improvements which the late Emperor of France is said to have introduced into Paris, was the removal of a large group of thickly clustered but dilapidated and wretched tenement houses, and the conversion of the site into a public square. The work was undertaken ostensibly to beautify that portion of the city. Those familiar with the history of these abodes of poverty, however, remember this locality as the place where have originated many of the most terrible riots with which that city has been visited; and they shrewdly suspect that the real motive of the Emperor was to destroy the nidus of future mobs and revolutionary movements. The example is one worthy of imitation, in all large cities. In July, 1863, New York passed through one of those ordeals of anarchy so common in European cities during civil commotions. Within a few hours of the commencement of riotous proceedings the civil authorities were completely overcome, and in the universal agitation of society the very dregs seemed to float to the surface, and surged to and fro along the streets and avenues, uncontrollable elements

of destruction. Business was suspended; public conveyances ceased their rounds; places of public amusement were deserted, and a pall of gloom hung over the city as if some terrible judgment was impending. Few citizens were seen abroad, but at every turn were groups of persons seldom if ever before met in the more respectable parts of the town. Their garments were ragged and filthy, and their faces, stamped with every crime, gleamed with the ferocity of unbridled passions. Individual acts of violence occurred on every hand, and this terrible carnival of murder and arson culminated on the first day in a grand ovation to the demon of the mob in the conflagration of an orphan asylum over the heads of several hundreds of helpless, homeless, and fatherless children. No mob can show a blacker record than that which disgraced New York on July 14, 15, and 16, 1863. The various political and social phases of this great riot was largely discussed in the daily papers, but there are some things worthy of record as gathered from a professional stand-point. It is a noticeable fact that the rioters represented for the most part the lowest and most abandoned class of the poor. They proceeded from those districts of the city notorious for their filthy and unpoliced streets, and wretched and uninhabitable tenement houses. Here live and grovel in darkness, filth, drunkenness, and disease, a large population, roughly estimated at twenty thousand. The

following description of this class, as drawn by Mr. N. P. Willis, an eyewitness to the scenes of arson and murder during the riot, will be recognized as truthful by every physician whose duties may have led him into these abodes of wretchedness:

"The high brick blocks and closely packed houses in this neighborhood seemed to be literally hives of sickness and vice. Curiosity to look on, at the fire raging so near them, brought every inhabitant to the porch or window, or assembled them in ragged and dirty groups on the sidewalk in front. Probably not a creature, who could move, was left in-door at that hour. And it is wonderful to see, and difficult to believe, that so much misery, and disease, and wretchedness, can be huddled together and hidden by high walls, unvisited and unthought of, so near our own abodes. The lewd, but pale and sickly young women, scarce decent in their ragged attire, were impudent, and scattered everywhere in the crowd. But what numbers of these poorer classes are deformed, what numbers are made hideous by self-neglect and infirmity, and what numbers are paralytics, drunkards, imbecile, or idiotic, forlorn in their poverty-stricken abandonment for this world! Alas! human faces look so hideous with hope and vanity all gone! And female forms and features are made so frightful by sin, squalor, and debasement. To walk the streets as we walked them, for those hours of conflagration and riot, was like a fearful witnessing of the day of judgment, with every wicked thing revealed, every sin and sorrow blazingly glared upon, every hidden horror and abomination laid bare, before hell's expectant fire."

It was also noticeable that while business was generally suspended, every establishment where liquor is sold was open, and crowded with cus