He said: "We may like it, but it is
dangerous." (Last year, when in Neu Brandenburg, I came across a
man whose brother was a horse-butcher in Pomerania, and,
remembering this imperial remark, I asked about horse-liver. The
man said he always had a feast of horse-liver when he visited his
brother, and that he much preferred it to cows' liver, or to any
other part of the horse; but, he added, "you must be careful about
eating it in summer.") In 645 Duke Muh of Ts'in was rescued from
the Tsin troops by what was described to him as a body-guard of
horse-flesh eaters. It appeared, when he sought for explanation,
that the same Ts'in ruler had, some time before, been robbed of a
horse by some "wild men," who proceeded to cut it up and eat it.
They were arrested; but the magnanimous duke said: "I am told
horse-flesh needs spirits to make it digest well," and, instead of
punishing them, he gave them a keg of liquor, adding: "no sage
would ever injure men on account of a mere beast.", He had
forgotten the circumstance, but it now transpired that these men
had, out of gratitude, since then enlisted as soldiers.
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