Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1867-08-09
Pork-Packing.
VISIT TO ONE OF THE GREAr EsTAB
LIsHMENTs OF CINCINNATI.


Every one thinks of pork in connection
with Cincinnati. We had the curiosity to
visit one of the celebrated pork-packing
establishments, "The Banner Slaughter
and Pork-packing House." which, being
the newest, contains all the imp, owed APP
paratns. In this establishment hogs
weighing five or six hundred pounds are
killed, scraped, dressed, cut up, salted and
packed in barrel, in twenty seconds, on
an average; and at this rate the work is
done, ten hours day, during the season
of four months. The great secret of such
rapidity is, that one man does one thing
only, and thus learns to do that one thing
with perfect dexterity. We saw man
there who, all day and every day, knocks
pigs down with hammer; another who,
with one clean, easy stroke of broad
long-handled cleaver, decapitates the hug
est hog of Ohio; another who does moth
ing but stick" them. But let us begin
at the beginning, for, really this Banner
pork-house is one of the most curious
things in the world, and claims the atten-
ton of the polite reader.
1t is large, clean, new, brick building,
with extensive yards adjoiningit, filed with
hogs from the forests and farms of Ohio,
Indiana and Kentucky. From these yards
to the third story of the house there is an
inclined plane, up which a procession of
animals march slowly to their doom from
morning until evening. Here is the first
economy. The thing to be done is to
transfer the pigs from those yards to the
basement of the building, and, on the way,
convert them into salt pork. They walk
to the scene of the massacre at the top of
the building, and the descent TO the cellar
accomplishes itself by the natural law
which causes everything to seek the centre
of the earth. Arrived at the summit, the
fifteen foremost find themselves " in
tight place"-squeezed into a pen in which
they must remain standing from lack of
room to lie down. There are two of these
pens, and two pen men; so that the mo-
ment one pen is empty there is another
ready filed, and the work thus goes on
without interruption. The fifteen animals
which stand compressed, with their heads
thrust upward, awaiting the stroke of fate,
express their emotions in the language
natural to them, and the noise is great
The executioner, armed with long-han-
died, slender hammer, and sitting astride
of the fence, gives to each of these yelling
creatures his quietus by blow upon the
head. The pig does not fall when he is
struck he cannot he only stares and be-
comes silent. The stranger who is unable
to witness the execution has an awful
sense of the progress of the fell work by
the gradual cessation Of the noise. We
mention here, for the benefit of political
economists, that this knocker-down, who
does the most disagreeable and laborious
part of the work, has the lowest wages
paid to any man in the house. He does
not rank as an artist at all, but only as a
laborer. Readers Of Adam Smith and
John Stuart Mill know why. When ST.
lence within the pen announces the sur
render of its occupants, door is opened,
and the senseless are laid in a row up an
inclined plane, at the bottom of which is a
long trough Of hot water.
One of the artists, called I" the sticker,"
now appears, provided with long, thin,
pointed knife, and approaches the pig
nearest the steaming trough, gently lifts
its fore leg, and gives it one easy, delicate,
graceful thrust in the throat. Along the
trough, on each side Of it, is row of men,
each with an instrument in his hand, wait
ing to begin and apart from them stands
the head scalder, who ranks second in the
corps, having the task Of all the greatest
difficulty to perform. Scald pig ten Sec
onds too long, or in water twenty degrees
too hot, and he comes out as red as a lob
SCeT ltt LUe wafer Uc tOO CuDi, VI hcSp
the animal in it too short time, and the
labor Of scraping it is trebled. Into the
hot water the hogs are soused at intervals
of twenty seconds, and the scalder stands
watching the clock and occasionally trying
the temperature of the water with his fin
ger or the adherence of the hair on the
creature first to be handled. "Number
One," he says at length. By machine
for the purpose, number one is turned over
on long, declining table, where he lies
smoking. At the same time two men pull
q out his valuable bristles and put them in
barrel, and two other men scrape one
side Of him with scrapers. In few sec.
onds these turn him over and pass him or
to two other scrapers, who scrape the 9th
er side, and then slide him along to fouI
other men, who trim and finish him, leav-
ing not hair on his soft and quivering