The butchers organization was suppressed and all hope of reform lost.
Merino cross with early-maturity longwool, Down, or other close-wooled rams, are good butchers' sheep, and most of the frozen mutton imported into the United Kingdom has had more or less of a merino origin.
Once again from family anecdotes, it is understood that Thomas Hogarth had a butchers business of his own in Bispham, Blackpool.
The statute, however, would not seem to have had much effect; for in spite of a proclamation of Queen Elizabeth in 1560 imposing a fine of £ 20 for each offence on butchers slaughtering animals during Lent, in 1563 Sir William Cecil, in Notes upon an Act for the Increase of the Navy, says that "in old times no flesh at all was eaten on fish days; even the king himself could not have license; which was occasion of eating so much fish as now is eaten in flesh upon fish days."
Butchers have palmed off upon their customers imported fresh meat as homegrown, and secured a dishonest profit by charging for it the prices of the latter, which are considerably in excess of those of the imported product.
