The Butcher

Thomas De Voe Butcher
Originally uploaded by Daily Assumption.

"'I cannot help observing that it seems odd the butchers themselves should sound the alarm about casualty flesh, which many people otherwise might never have thought of. The fishmongers would never cry stinking fish, and the bakers would be unwilling to have it even supposed that any made use of alum in their bread. I remember, for a great while after the affair of Elizabeth Tofts, the Rabbit-woman, the owners and renters of warrens were all ruined, for persons would as soon eat a cat as a rabbit. Should the like disgust prevail against flesh, from the fear of its being casualty flesh, what would become of Smithfield and Leadenhall Markets? There is, indeed, some danger that people will conceive an antipathy against barrelled beef, pickled pork, and all kinds of soused meat, on this occasion; and it is to be hoped that the contractors for victualling His Majesty's Navy will not buy up any of the drowned cattle, to turn the stomachs of our sailors. The unwholesomeness, however, of casualty flesh I have heard denied by a gentleman, who had been in Italy, and declared that he himself had eaten heartily (without any ill effects) of a hog that was casually barbecued, and an ox that was roasted whole in the eruptions from Mount Vesuvius." --THE MARKET ASSISTANT :De Voe