A London butcher, writing to Thursday's Times, pours out the
most bitter contempt on the New Zealand frozen meat. When it first comes into the market, he says, it looks bright and clean, but is as hard as a lump of stone ; when it thaws, "it looks as if it had been drawn through a horse-pond." The London butcher declares that nobody sees anything of this frozen meat, because it is only sold to the poor at a few pence per pound, just as the offal of the English meat is sold to the poor at re- duced prices. If this were the truth, of course the importation would be much less important than has been supposed ; but the tone of the London butcher's letter is too angry to inspire great confidence. He treats the New Zealand meat with osten- tatious contempt, indeed, but with an acridity that betokens fear. A reply in yesterday's Times maintains that the meat, after thawing, can be soli in a condition perfectly dry and clean, and that good butchers are willing to give from 50. to 6.id. a pound for it, which, it is said, would leave a profit of from
a penny to twopence a pound. •
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