The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-02-08


the halves of swine, for whose behoof great
humps OF ice were being pitched in at the
window. That room was the mortuary
chamber where the pigs lay for little
while In state ere they began their progress
through such passages as kings may some
times travel.
HOW PORK Is MADE
Turning corner and not noting an over.
head arrangement of creased rail. wheel
and pulley, / ran into the arms of four
eviscerated carcasses, all pure white and of
a human aspect, pushed by man clad in
vehement red.s When I leaped aside the
floor was slippery under me- Also there
was havor of farmyard in my nos
trils and the shouting of a multitude
in my ears. But there was no Joy in that
shouting. Twelve men stood in two lines
six a side. Between them and over
head ran the railway of death that had
nearly shunted me through the window.
Each man carried knife, the sleeves of
his shirt were cut off at the elbows, and
from bosom TO heel he was blood red
Beyond this perspective was column of
steam, and beyond that was where
worked my awe-struck way. unwilling to
touch beam or wall. The atmosphere was
sliding as a night in the rains by reason of
the steam and the crowd. / climbed to
a narrow beam, overlooked very nearly all
the pigs ever bred in Wisconsin. They
had just been shot out of the mouth of the
vladuct and huddled together in large
pen. Thence they were nieked persua-
sively, few at a time, into a smaller
chamber, and there man fixed tackle on
their hinder legs so that they rose in the
air, suspended from the railway of death
Oh it was then they shrieked and called
on their mothers and made promises Of
amendment, till the tackleman punted
them in their backs and they slid head
down into brick doored passage very like
big kitchen sink that was blood red.
There awaited them red man with a
knife which he passed jauntily through
their throats, and the full voiced shrek
became splutter, and then a fall as of
heavy tropical rain. and the red man, who
was backed against the passage wall, you
will understand, stood clear of the wildly
kicking hoofs and passed his hand over
his eyes, not from any feeling of compass
sion, but because the sp9rted blood was
IN his eyes and he had barely time to
stick the next arrival Then that first
stuck swine dropped, still kicking, into a
great vat of boiling water and spoke no
more words but wallowed in obedience to
some unseen machinery, and presently
came forth at the lower end of the vat and
was heaved on the blades of blunt paddle
hough!' and skelped all the hair off him
except what little couple OF men with
knives could remove.
Then he was again hitched by the heels
TO that said railway and passed down the
line of the twelve men-each armed with a
knife-losing with each man q certain
amount of his individuality, which W as
taken away in wheeibarrow, and when
he reached the last man he was very beau
tifui to behold but excessively unstuffed
and limp. Preponderance of individuality
was ever a bar to foreign travel. That pig
could have been in case to visit you in
India had he not parted with some OF his
most cherished notions.
The dissecting part impressed me not SO
much as the staying. They were so excess
siyely alive, these pigs. And then. they
were SO excessively dead. and the man in
the dripping, clammy, hot passage did not
seem to care, and ere the blood of such a
one had ceased to foam on the door such
another and four friends with him had
unclean animal-the forbidden of the
prophet.
MORE SLAUGHTER.
/ was destined to make rather queer
discovery when | went over to the cattle
slaughter All the buildings here were on
much larger scale and there was no sound
of trouble, but could smell the salt reek
of blood before set foot in the place. The
cattle did not come directly through the
viaduct as the pigs had DONE They de-
bouched into a yard by the hundred, and
they were big red brutes, carrying much
flesh.
In the center of that yard stood a red
Texan steer with a headstall on his
wicked head. No man controlled him.
He was, so to speak, picking his teeth and
whistling in an open byre of his own when
the cattle arrived. As soon as the first one
had fearfully quilted the viaduct this red
devil put his hands in his pockets and
slouched across the yard, no man guiding
him. Then he lowed something to the effect
that he was the regularly appointed guide
of the establishment and would show
them round. They were country folk, but
they knew how to behave; and so fol-
lowed Judas, some hundred strong, pa
tiently and with a look of bland wonder
in their faces. I saw his broad back jog
ging in advance of them, up, up a lime
washed incline where / was forbidden to
follow. Then door shut, and in a min
ute back came Judas with the air of a vir-
tuous pillow bullock, and took up his place
in his byre. Somebody laughed across the
yard. but heard no sound of cattle from
the big brick building into which the mob
had disappeared. Only Judas chewed the
cud with a malignant satisfaction, and so
| knew there was trouble and ran around
to the front of the factory and so entered
and stood aghast.
Who takes count of the prejudices which
We absorb through the skin, by way OF our
surroundings? 1t was not the spectacle
that almost spoke itself aloud was: ''They
are killing kline, and it was shock. The
pigs were nobody's concern, but cattle
the brothers of the COW, the sacred COW
were quite otherwise. The next time an
NJ. p. tells me that India either Sultanizes
or Brahminizes man | shall believe
about half what he saws. 1t is I'M
pleasant TO watch the slaughter of cattle
when one has laughed at the notion for
few years. | could not see actually what
was done in the urst instance, because the
row of stalls in which they lay was sepa-
rated from me by nifty impossible feet of
butchers and slung carcasses. All know
is that men swung open the doors of stall
as occasion required. and there lay two
steers already stunned. and breathing
heavily. These two they pole-axed, and
half raising them by tackle they cut their
threats.
Two men skinned each carcass, some
body cut of the head. and in half a minute
more the overhead rail carried two sides OF
a beef TO their appointed place. There
was clamor enough in the operating room,
but from the waiting cattle, invisible on
the other side of the line of pens, never
a sound They went TO their death, trust
ing Judas, without word. They were
slain at the rate of five minute, and If
the pig men were spattered with blood
these butchers were bathed in it, The
blood ran in muttering cutters. There
was no place for hand or foot that was not
coated with thickneSses of dried blood and
the stencil of it in the notrils bred fear.
And then the same merciful Providence
that has showered good things on my path