SKINNING BY ELECTRICITY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2298, 18 May 1886, Page 2

SKINNING BY ELECTRICITY.

The introduction 'of improved laborsaving appliance in the slaughtering industry has been particularly slow, and of an unimportant nature. A gigantic stride lias, however just been accomplished by the invention of what the patentee calls an "electric siding knife," for taking off animal's skins, without injury to either the skins or the carcase, if we aro to believe our American contemporaries, / The inventor, is, of courscA American,' Mr J. Newgass, who fora number of years, has had charge of theJJtfrbanfc Canning Company's immense tighter, house at New York (and who, by the way, has made the study of electricity the. principal occupation of his spare time for the last five years). The depreciation in the value of hides from what is known in the trade as scores, snips, and cuts is a sufficient loss (from dockage ■ by the buyers of the hides) to make the new discovery one of great value, Accbrdine to the Ncio York Eleekical Review the value of hides will be increased from one-half tq one cent, a pound by the " electric siding knife," as the fleshy Bide is left as smooth and even as the inner side of sheep pelt, The siding knife, like all good inventions, is simplicity itself, being virtually nothing more than a slight, alteration of the Edison incandescent or arc light, with the glass bulb removed. The knife, in con- - station, -resembles very much the receiver employed by the telephone companies, and, like it, has a double set •■ of covered or insulated wj-es attached to the butt end of the the body of same to the cutting, or mora properly the burning edge of the wire, which is composed of platinum, The current is entirely under control of the butcher, who, after oponing the hide in the usual way with an ordinary knife, turns on the current and commences removing the hide with long quick sweeps of the aider. The principle of burning, as the platinum edge & brought to an inteuso wjiito heat, yet said edge is «o arranged and protected with non-con-ducting shields that it is impossible to injure either the hide or the carcass; in fact, the hide seems to bo, as it were, torn, or pulled off by some unexplained force, of this wonderful agent, electricity; and, further it has been demonstrated beyond a doubt that % ineat hold? its color better and longer, this being accounted for by the fact that the pores are closed up by the action of the current, which seems to leave a thin and transparent coating over the entire side. Another advantage is that the'beef, after leaving the ehill room, never sweats or weeps as under the old system of taking off. The patent is controlled by the company, who employ Newgass, the patentee. t