Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-04-20
CRUELTY AID THE STOCK BUSINESS

The cattle business of the great central
basin has advanced to such proportions
now as to command attention such as was
not dreamed of by even the most sanguine
very few years ago. 1t is unquestion.
ably business of very quick and very
large returns, with correspondingly heavy
involvement of risk. The important posi-
tion it occupies now with reference to the
European meat market, and the changes
that must be effected in it with the mar
rowing of the free ranges, are subjects that
1t is our intention to treat separately,
and from purely commercial standpoint
of view. For the present purpose it is
needed but to refer to the matters named,
aud to recall to the readers mind the i'm.
mensity of the business and of the trans
portation involved to direct attention to
the alleged extreme and uncalled.for cru.
city that marks the trade.
We have the statement of President
/. L. Brown, of the American Humane
Association, that the cruelty practiced in
the cattle business is of character and
extent that is burning reproach to Ameri-
cans as a civilized people. We may safely
take the statements of gentlemen officially
situated as is Mr.. Brown with some char.
liable allowance. because his very position
tends to lead him to extreme views. OF
this we do not complain. He and his
would be able to accomplish no reforms il
the treatment of animals by man, were
they not, in a sense, extremists. But af.
ter setting off broad margin for the sus.
ceptibility and sensitiveness of the men,
bers of the Humane Society and their zeal
as reformers, enough remains to ahock the
moral sense Of all decent men.
For instance, there are 10000 men EN-.
ployed about the cattle yards of Chicago.
OF these, nearly one-half have become 60
embruted by the nature and practice of
their calling that as one gentleman phrased
It, according to Mr.. Brown, they are lit.
tie better than murderers" We can
readily conceive how this may be. The
association with scenes in which dumb
beast are driven daily beneath the AK in
vast numbers must have tendency to
deaden the sensibility to pain and blood
shed. Out of this conviction grew the old
English law custom to reject butchers as
jurors, the belief being that the calling rem
dered the man callous, in greater or less de-
gree, to the gentler sentiments. We are told
that in the western and central parts of the
great basin, along the great railroad lines,
matters are very bad, and that the stock
men, removed from the civilizing influences
of large communities, are often barbarous
in their handling of cattle, and go so far
as to delight in the cruelty they infict
They arrive at that state which owes its
pleasure to snother's pain. Stock is, it is
charged, packed in cars and tortured with
sharp prods, eyes are punched out or torn
from the sockets, limbs broken, tongues
twisted TO the roots and other cruelties
practiced by the hardened drovers. They
become, it is charged, heartless to the suf-
ferings of the animals, oyer-drive them,
deprive them for long periods of water and
food, and then give them salt and finally
water to fill them out and increase their
weight. They leave them to perish by the
thousand of biting cold in winter, when
they might be driven to at least partial
shelter from the piercing blasts of the
ranges. 1t is charged that at times IN hot
weather as many as 1000 hogs have
been taken from a single train, smothered
to death, and it is intimated that utiliza.
ton Of the caroasses in such cases for lard,