The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-11-27

that canary bird would sing its head off
if hung up in the hall.
How the Cincinnati Hog is Taken in and
Done For.
BY the improved process of Strengthening,
within the brief space of two and ahalf
minutes hog loses its place in the world
as portion of the vitalized creation and
becomes SO much bacon, SO much spare
ribs and such quantity of lard. AS the
process involves the personality of the hog
to some extent, we will begin with him in
his living, breathing form. lie is contained
in an immense pen on the ground floor of
the building, and there are a good many
of him, say five or six hundred at time
The porcine grunters having had their
doom duly sealed, spoken their 81 last
words" and teaIfully handed around
among their ailing and spared companions
few locks of blistlcs and mementoes, are
driven up gangway to the slaughter pen,
where an able-bodied colored gentleman
claps a chain around their hind legs, one
at time, and the pressure of a steam lever
jerks the struggling and loudly squealng
pig into the air. He is now suspended on
horizontal bar about thirty feet long.
The chain by which he is suspended slides
along the bar, and before he fairly COM
prehends the situation another man, CORY
to his very armpits, plunges knife into
his throat, and taps the life current. He
squeals and kicks about half second, and
before the "vital spark has fled " has beside
him former comrade of the pen, who has
met with the same misfortune, and, with
him is on the way to meet his Gadarepe
ancestors. There is constant line of
stuck hogs passing down this elevated bar,
and when they get to the end Of it they
are dead, and are pumped into an enor-
nous tank of boiling water. The great
personal pride of pig sticker is to have
very little if any sqnealing on the part of
a hog after he introduces his knife into
his jugular. There was "sub" on deck
yesterday afternoon, and the pigs squealed
good deal, SO much, in fact, that his
assistants were disposed to complain.
The hogs take their post norton warm
bath, into which they are plunged from
the iron rod, eight and ten at a time, and,
by means of a revolving iron skid operated
by steam at one end of the tank, are
thrown out singly upon a long wooden
table, on which they are scraped by twelve
or fifteen men. They start in rough, shaggy
and dirty at one end of the table, and reach
the other end as clean and white as may be.
At the far end of the table one man cuts
off the head, another tlops the bloodless
trunk over to a gang below, who "gut"
him, hang him up to cool him off with a
stream of water. The heading process is
new here, we believe, and comes from
acephalous Chicago. 1t is claimed that by
cutting off the head the hog is more speed.
lily cooled, and that the lard, tongue and
head pieces are got at day in advance of
the old method. The hams are also faced
and the inside fat taken out while the hog
is still warm, instead of waiting for it to
cool as formerly, and the innovation is said
to be very advantageous. When the heads
have been cut off, the entrails anG fatty
substance taken out and the hams dressed,
the cleaned hogs are hung on runways be-
tween the jjoist of the drying room and
run into the ice department to cool. Nearly
all the houses on the avenue will "hand
about 3, 500 hogs on floor. In this room,
rh ha Srff nian 1y
are cut up into all the various forms of
pork-hams, shoulders, middles, ETC., and
the men who do the cutting use their
knives and saws with the skill and pre-
cison of anatomists cleaning bone when
it is to be thrown away SO perfectly that a
hungry dog would pass it by in disgust.
Since the adoption of the new method of
taking off the heads and "facing" the
hams in the killing room the cutters work
very fast and to much better advantage.
To cut up thousand hogs is now consid-
cred only fair days work for one man,
and in the busy season even more than that
amount of work is exacted. All of the
houses are supplied with huge iron watts
extending from the killing room to the
floor below, in which the fatty portions Of
the hog are boiled or steamed into lard.
An improvement known as "Caldwell's
Manhead," has recently been made to these
watts. 1t is manhead in the centre of the
bottom of the tank instead of at the sides
as in the old tanks. and its utility is that
when the cooking process is complete, it is
opened and the "chowder" or "slush,"
as the refuse of the lard is called, drops
out at once. The old tanks had to cool so
as to allow man to go into them and
shovel out the "chowder, and that gener-
ally required two or three hours. When
the lard is "done" it is pumped into an
elevated galvanized receiver called the
"zig- gag" some thirty by twelve feet
square, and traversed by cutters aggregat-
ing in length nearly 400 feet. The lard
having passed through these cutters passes
through a long pipe to another receiver,
| from which it is drawn into the tierces in
which it finds its way to market. The
bristles go to the brush factory or mattress
maker; the brains become head cheese"
the feet are sold at the restaurant as " Irish
quail" and the blood flows into a big
wooden vessel directly under the killer, is
warmed by steam pipes until it congeals
into sort Of jelly, and is then readily sold
as fertilizer.-Co Commercial.
cB Go into store in Cecil county on
a wash day and sit one hour, and You will
Wilmington City Soap" to make you
dream at night, you are making soap in a
tin pan with tea spoon for a ladle. Try
it. 9