Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/205

 has occasioned the commencement of putrefaction. We have been informed that frequently late at night they are tempted to buy tainted meat, which the sellers did not dare to expose in their shambles by day, at two-pence per pound; and that in the like manner the farmers in the neighbourhood occasionally dispose of the carcases of cattle which have died of disease. In certain obscure districts we have had the pain to see meat hanging in the shops, black in colour and almost liquid in consistence. When to such examples of diet we add the sweepings of green-grocers' stalls, which are often insufficiently boiled for want of fuel, some idea may be formed of the innutritious, or even noxious, character of the aliment on which a large portion of the populace subsist. To those who happened to witness the avidity with which the allowances of rice and gruel (neither spiced nor sweetened,) were sought at the time of the prevalence of cholera, when these articles were largely distributed, no further proof was wanting of the scarcity of the necessaries of life. Great as are these evils, the lot of the poor half-fed people would be comparatively happy, if the practice of spirit drinking were not prevalent. No tongue can tell the miseries induced by these poisons among the unthinking wretches, who often resort to them at first for the relief of gnawing hunger, and the fancied obviation of the results of deficient clothing. All their unavoidable ills are increased a hundred-fold. The evils of a spare maintenance might be to a certain degree endurable, with bodies not subjected to worse agencies, with passions under control, and with families peaceable and well-regulated; but such