a bad man, a respected churchman.... I spoke
to certain grown-ups, but did not get the sense of tragedy
that was mine. No one criticised Devlin. It was the custom,
they said.... Even the butcher had heard of old Mary.... You
see how ungrippable, how abstract the tragedy was for a
child--but you never can know what it showed me of the world.
None of us who wept that day ate meat for many days. I have
not since. I cannot."

Her story reminded me sharply of a recent personal experience. I had
been thinking of buying a cow. It appears that there are milch-cows and
beef-cows. Country dealers prefer a blend, as you shall see. I said I
wanted butter and milk, intimating the richer the better; also I wanted
a front-yard cow, if possible.... There was a gentle little Jersey lady
that had eyes the children would see fairies in----

"Yes, she's a nice heifer," the man said, "but now I'm a friend of
yours----"

"I appreciate that. Isn't she well?"

"Yes, sound as a trivet."

"A good yielder?"

"All of that."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, a cow is like a peach-tree, she doesn't last forever. After the
milktime, there isn't much left for beef----"

"But I don't want to eat her."

"But as an investment--you see, that's where the Jerseys fall down--they
don't weigh much at the butcher's."

The styles change more slowly in the country.... I found this good
economy so prevalent as to be rather high for humour. In fact, that's
exactly why you can't get "grand" stakes in the country.... I related
the episode to a man interested in the prevention of cruelty. He said:

"Don't blame it all on the country. I saw one of those butcher's
abominations in a city street yesterday--cart with crate, new calf
inside, old moaning mammy dragged after to the slaughter--a very
interesting tumbril, but she hadn't conspired against the government.
For a year she had given the best of her body to nourish that little
bewildered bit of veal--and now we were to eat what was left of her....
Also I passed through a certain railway yard of a big city last
holidays. You recall the zero weather? Tier on tier of crated live
chickens were piled there awaiting shipment--crushed into eight-inch
crates, so that they could not lift their heads. Poe pictured an
atrocious horror like that--a man being held in a torture-cell in such a
position that he could not stand erect. It almost broke a man's nerve,
to say nothing of h