Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1877-03-01
miscellaneous &eadina.
HOG.RAIs1NG AND PORK PACKING.

HOG.RAISING AND PORK PACKING.'
It is worth visit, at this season of the year,
to one of the Northwestern pork-packing
houses, to see them kill the hogs and convert
them into pork.
The killing is usually done in the fifth sto-
~ Of building, and in few hours the meat
is rolled out from the lower story as clear rib
sides, dry salted, or smoked bacon. The hogs
are driven up a winding inclined plane from
the lot to the upper story, where they are
forced or crowded, by twenties and thirtles,
into small pens communicating with each
other by trap or sliding doors. AS soon as
the pens are full, chap, with rope in bis
hand, steps up to an opening in the side OF
the pen, quickly thrusts a clamp, that is at.
tached to the end of the rope or chain, around
the hind leg of hog In an instant the rope
is frightened by machinery, and the great
grunting porker is suspended by bis hind leg
in the air. The pulley from which he hangs
runs along on track to the end Of the build.
ing, where, in an instant, butcher-knife is
forced into his throat until it touches bis
heart, and, before the first is dead, second
comes rolling along; and thus one after
another they are hitched to the clamps, drag.
ged from the pen, and swung along through
the air to the man in an oil suit who bleeds
them, on an average of four to the minute
all day long. =.
After be finishes with them, they are showed
along, suspended from the miniature railway,
until they come to the long scaldiug trough,
into which they are dropped, frequently be.
fore life is extinct, and, sooner than we can
tell it, they are swept through the scalding
water to the end of the trough, and denuded
of all their hair and bristles, are again sus-
pended by gambrel, and showed upon anoth-
er railroad track till they come to parties who,
in second almost, wash them clean and torn
them over to the most dexterous butcher in
the establishment. 80 ..'.'
The man we saw "gutting" these hogs, dis.
emboweled about four to the minute, and said
he had cleaned of their entrails as many as
seven in one minute"
AS soon as the hog is divested of its hair,
the head is cut off at single stroke, almost
as quickly the entrails are token out, and the
beheaded carcasses are then rolled along on
the track to the cooling room, to be hung in
solid column by The gambrell for perhaps
twenty-four hours for the meat to get thor
oughly cold. The little railroad tracks upon
which the suspended hogs are showed along,
have regular switches as they approach the
rooms, so that just so many may be suspend
ed on one track and 80 many on another until
the room is full.
When perfectly cold, the carcasses are low
cred to another story, where they are cut up
almost at single stroke, the lard and sausage
| 4, ltbo G,,& oF fhoSa
various duties are performed by different
set of men, and each having his specific work
to perform, does it in less time than an mex
perienced hand would begin to do it, and it
all seemed to be done most dexterously. At
a single blow the hams are cut from middlings
of all the hogs. The shoulders are taken
only from the large ones. The shoulder
bludes are taken from the shoulders of the
smaller hogs in most ingenious manner.
With very keen knife the meat is cut loose
from the bone on one side, and then similarly
treated on the under side, when small cord
is attached to the bone and to collar around
the mans neck, and with both hands pressing
on the shoulder, he raises or draws himself
back and the bone slips out from the shout
der This entire piece of meat is then sold as
you see the farmer who buys "long sides" pays
as much for shoulders as he does for mid
dlngs, though he gets nothing but mest in
theshoulder, as the bone has been extracted.
On q still lower floor, these pieces Of green
meat are sailed and lowered to the packing
room. When the visitor reaches the lower
story, he secs in the hogshead, box or cask, or
in barrels of lard, the veritable parts of the
live hog he had seen in the fifth story suspend
ed by his hough. I
This butchering and packing is carried on
all the summer, the temperature of the rooms
being kept almost to freezing point BY tons
of ice that are packed away overhead and
around the rooms on all sides. Pork:packing
is now so skillfully done that the art has be-
come real science.
Where SO many dirty rooters are butchered
so rapidly, so much blood spilled, and so
much liquid waste handled, one would sup
pose that there was great degree of filth in
the establishment. But not so In the house
we visited, where several thousands are butch
cred daily, there is less filth than would be
around the hog.pen Of country farmer who
had just butchered his winters supply Of q
halfdozen home.raised pigs.
Single houses in Chicago will average ten
thousand hogp in day, from early fall till
late in the spring, for there will be several
sets of hands performing the labors we have
been describing, in two or three parts of the
building at the same time. The capacity Of
the City of Chicago is about fifty thousand
hogs daily, throug ghout the packing season,
and these hogs average nearly two hundred
and fifty pounds.
The laborers never seem to know the Gay
of the week. for they are as busy on Sunday
as in the middle of the week. What plea
there can be for this gross violation of the
Sabbath, we could not discover. There was,
to our mind, no more necessity for that sacri-
lege than for the ordinary farmer to have his
ploughs and hoes at work. But all mammoth
concerns, such as these pork.packing houses,
iron furnaces, railroads and the like, can com.
nit acts or crimes that silence the condemna-
tion of the world, if they do not receive its
commendation, whereas if q private individ-
ual were to do the same or similar deeds on
small scale, he would be denounced far and
near. So also with great thefts in these de.
generate times. They command the very ad-
miration of the world because of their daring
and stupendous criminality. Petty larceny
is handled by petit juries and they both seem
petty indeed by the side of these mighty ad'
venturers.
All the oAal of these houses are utilized by
a manufactory of fertilizers near by, who use
everything pro6tably except perhaps the liv-
ers and lights. These are bulky, and almost
valueless. 1t takes nineteen livers to make
the bulk of one liver after the nineteen are
dried Much of the offal ia desccated and