The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-02-15
From the Lancaster pa Express.
PORK EATING-TERRIBLE TO C0NTEM.
PLATE.

Statistics show that the total number Of hogs
packed in Cincinnati this season amounts to
438 ,051 head. That is in excess of any pre-
vious year. At Terra Haute, Ind, the pack
ing this season is estimated at rs, 900 hogs
Much of this pork is sent North as hams and
shoulders, and consumed in our large cities,
while tne stprime western hams" penetrate into
the towns and villages. OF all animal food
there Is none SO foul and ~unciean as pork, nor
any that SO quickly generates disease and i'll
health. IF some of our readers, who are so
"passionately fond" of ham, knew what they
were eating, their stomachs would reTclt at the
dose.
The Western hogs are generally fattened on
the prairies during the summer aud fall
months, and sent to market in TIE winter. A
drove of say two hundred hogs are driven from
twenty to seventy miles before they reach the
Strengthening pens, an during the route prob
ably twenty or thirty per cent. of them will
die from disease OF fatigue. Their Threats are
then cut, and they arc pitched into a wagon
and carried to the butcher, who cuts them up
into "prime shoulders" and "prime hams" and
sen Is them in a cured state to market Can
pork under such circumstance be wholesome?
But independent of the fact, in communities
owhore pork is the staple food-where it is
eaten FIR breakfast, dinner and supper-we
have noticed pale cheeks, dim, sanken eyes,
ana q general leuOtu y u 6CIOiuidS cOllpidiDIS.
Such IS particularly the case In many South
/ ern and Western communities where pork is
the main material used for building up the hui
man form divine. Out on it.
u The fifty part of Western hams very often
ssccre e, a deadly poison, and it is a mystery
20 many persons how it gets there. The only
satisfactory solution of the matter at which we
eau arrive-and We. once took some trouble to
investigate the subjects that the poison is
the viras of the rattlesnake, and we will ex-
p,.i-i how it gets into the ham. Tie Western
~prairies during the summer months are liter
ally alive with reptiles the hogs feed on the
prairies and are remarkably foadof snakes. eat
iag the harmless garter and the prairie snake
with rs keen a relish as a Chinaman devou-s
his fricassicd rat. When Mr.. Porker, however,
comes to the deadly rattle, he proceeds with
more caution, for the latter furnishes him
with assnice a rapast as the garter, though not
80 easiK obtained. Heinakes two or three cir
cles aro6ad his snakeship, ~irritates him, and
finally gets him iuto the coil, when he backs
up his rear and receives the poisoned fangs
into the fatty part of his launches. After the
blow is given, Mr.. Porker turns on his foe and
finishes him. Of course the virus does not go
into the circulation, but remains concealed in
the fat until some two-legged biped gets the
benefit of the poison! Now and then the blow
of the snake hits in a less inpregnable part,
before the hog has finished his meal, he
staggers and swells, and finally goes down and
dies from the effects of the poison! But it is
very rare that when o hog dies thus, his meat
Is cut .up and sent to market
we have above thrown out a few facts re-
ork eating, hoping some. of our rea-
ders may be induced to, investigate this branch
afdistctlcs.
=iE