supply amounted to 6000 canisters, all
of which had to be examined, and out of which only a few hundred were
found to contain substances fit for food. Instead of good meat, or in
addition to a small quantity of good meat, the examiners found lung,
liver, heart, tongue, kidney, tendon, ligament, palate, fat, tallow,
coagulated blood, and even a piece of leather--all in a state of such
loathsome putridity as to render the office of the examiners a
terrible one.

Of course nothing can be predicated from such atrocities as these
against the wholesomeness of preserved food; they prove only the
necessity of caution in making the government contracts, and in
accepting the supplies. The Admiralty shewed, during subsequent
discussions, that large supplies had been received from various
quarters for several years, for use on shipboard in long voyages and
on arctic expeditions; that these had turned out well; and that the
contractor who was disgraced in the present instance, was among those
who had before fulfilled his contracts properly. Fortunately, there is
no evidence that serious evil had resulted from the supply of the
canisters to ships; the discovery was made in time to serve as a
useful lesson in future to government officials and to unprincipled
contractors.

The jury report before adverted to, points out how cheap and
economical these preserved meats really are, from the circumstance,
that all that is eatable is so well brought into use. It is affirmed
by the manufacturers, that meat in this form supplies troops and ships
with a cheaper animal diet than salt provisions, by avoiding the
expense of casks, leakage, brine, bone, shrinkage, stowage, &c., which
are all heavy items, and entail great waste and expenditure; and by a
canister of the former being so much smaller than a cask of the
latter, in the event of one bad piece of meat tainting the whole
contents. The contents of all the cases, when opened, are found to
have lost much of the freshness in taste and flavour peculiar to
newly-killed meat; they are always soft, and eat as if overdone. As a
matter of choice, therefore, few or no persons would prefer meat in
this state to the ordinary unpacked and recently-cooked state. But the
important fact to bear in mind is, that the nutritious principles are
preserved; as nutriment, they are unexceptionable, and they are often
pleasantly seasoned and flavoured.

In the ordinary processes of preparation, as carried on in