There is more animal food consumed in England than in any other country in the world. We do not merely say more, in proportion to the size of England, and the numbers of its inhabitants—for then we should only utter what every-body must know—but we mean actually _more_, without any such proportional considerations. Considering, then, this vast amount of animal food, in all its manifold bearings, it is impossible not to be struck with a sense of what vital importance it is to the health and general well-being of the community that this food should be of a perfectly wholesome kind. That very great quantities are not only unwholesome, but of the worst and most injurious kind, we shall now proceed to show. We will set this question clearly before the eyes of the reader, by tracing the brief and eventful history of an ox, from his journey to Smithfield, till he rolls his large eye upward for the last time beneath the unskilful blows of his slaughterer. A good-natured, healthy, honest-faced ox, is driven out of his meadow at break of day, and finds a number of other oxen collected together in the high road, amidst the shouting and whistling of drovers, the lowing of many deep voices, and the sound of many cudgels. As soon as the expected numbers have all arrived from the different stalls and fields, the journey of twenty miles to the railway commences. Some are refractory—the thrusting and digging of the goad instantly produces an uproar, and even our good-natured ox cannot help contributing his share of lowing and bellowing, in consequence of one of these poignant digs received at random while he was endeavouring to understand what was required of him. From this moment there is no peace or rest in his life. The noise and contest is nearly over after a few miles, though renewed now and then at a cross-road, when the creatures do not know which way they are to go, and some very naturally go one way, and some the other. The contest is also renewed whenever they pass a pond, or brook, as the weather is sultry; and the roads are so dusty, besides the steam from the breath and bodies of the animals, that their journey seems to be through a dense, continuous, stifling cloud. It is noon; and the sun is glaring fiercely down upon the drove. They have as yet proceeded only twelve miles of their journey, but the sleek and healthy skin of our honest-faced ox has already undergone a considerable change—and as for his countenance, it is waxing wroth. His eye has become blood-shot since they passed the last village ale-house, where he made an attempt, in passing, just to draw his feverish tongue along the water of the horse-trough, but was suddenly prevented by a violent blow of the hard nob-end of a drover’s stick across the tip of his nose. Besides this, the wound he has received from the goad, has laid bare the skin on his back, and the sun is beginning to act upon this, as well as the flies.