METHOD OF BUTCHERING. How Animals Are "Quickly" Slaughtered, for Food.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 180, 27 November 1886, Page 5

METHOD OF BUTCHERING. How Animals Are "Quickly" Slaughtered, for Food.

It is gratifying to know that the improvement time has wrought upon every hand has in a great degree wiped out the farmer's barbarous treatment of the dumb and helpless animals whose flesh constitutes much of the food that gives health and vigour to the world. . In order to obtain as near an accurate statement us possible ad to how tar the advance in this direction had extended, the writer a&ked F. W. Luley rt of St. Paul, Minn., who waa recently in Cincinnati in attendance upon the National Butchers' Association, ii butchers made it an object to kill their meat animate with as little pain ac possible. "We certainly do," quickly responded the skilled cloaver-wieldor, "and moie than that. 1 can almost safely say that it is done without a particle of pain. This latter is especially true of cattle." "What is the now process for killing cattle ?" " There are two ways that can be done v. ithout suffering. In this countx-y, where they have the appliance, a number of bullocks are fastened in a row of Email box stalls just large enough for th.9m to stand in, with dimensions of about two and a half by eight feet. Then the butcher, who knows exactly where to cut, goes through v, ith a knife the shape of a dagger, only much larger, and wit h one st»b fevers the spinal cord jusfc back of the head 0:1 the neck. The animal ia instantly killed, and never knows what struck it." "Is one animal allowed to Eec another killed ?" " Under no circumstances. These stalla that I speak of are cix feet high and are perfectly tight, so that all that kind of cruelty is avoided." " In this manner how rapidly are cattle butchered ?" " Ac the rate of about one per minute for each man ; sixty in an hour it you wished " "How about nogs ?" "They are killed and dressed more rapidly than anything else. In first-claes slaughter houses they are stretched up by tho hind leg and fastened to a pulley that; runs the length of the room, and are run along on tha<", the workmen being stationed a certain distance apart, and by the time a hog gets to the end, which only takes about a minute, it is butchered, scalded, scraped cl-aned and cut up. 'I he man that sticks them handles about six eveiy minute, 3GO an hour 8,040 in a day. In this way, you see but little time for suffering is given." " How are fowls killed?" "Turkeys have to bs dressed with their heads on, but an expert can cut their throats from the inside so that they will die in a vory short tfme. Chickens are beheaded by machinery as fast as you could count, But there is less improvement in tho butchering of fowls than any other that I know ef." "What kind of animals are killed with the least pain ?" "Well, I' should think that cattle are* They are killed instantly, and I can't see that thore can ever be much improvement on the present process. In Germany they are killed in a different way, but about as rapidly and with as little pain. There they are fastened in a stall, open in front, and the butcher goes along to their heads with, a maul and a sharp steel instrument that he drives through rhcir frontal bone and tho brain with a single blow, causing inetanti death. Then, or couice, they are bled by cutting the throat. ' "1 suppose there will be constant acvancemont for a long time to come in your business, will there not, Mr Luley ?"' " Oh, yes ; like everything else, there is alwayp something lo learn about it. Wo will never be perfect, and yet we hope to keep apace with the woild and stay right along with the procession until every veetige of cruelty is driven from our business."