The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1891-07-01
A TRIP TO ARMOUR'S.
BILL ARP DESCRIBES MS VISIT TO JS3s
GREAT SLAUGHTER HOUSE. W
WHERE DEvLED HAM COMES FRoM--A
SIGHT OF TEN THOUSAND HOGS IN
ONE BoDY-How THEY ARE
TAKEN 70 THEIR M A IN


four brothers. He was very pleasant,
and talked and joked like other people.
He is tall and thin in flesh, and his dress
was common-quitec common. He looked
like temperate, hard working man of
forty-tive, with an income sufficient to
meet his expenses, and little over. He
moved around quietly among half hun
dred clerks and secretaries and type
writer's and telegraph operators-all at
their desks, but still he found time to
talk to us and did not seem annoyed.
He called up bright lad of fourteen and
told him to show us everything, and we
followed where he led. One time there
was herd of swine that ran down tF,so
the sea and were choked with the waters,
The devil and his kinfolks were after
them. / reckon that was where deviled
ham was invented. But these hogs of
Armour's seemed quiet enough and Sc
renely unconscious of their impending
doom. How kind is Providence to the
beasts and birds and fish that we sacri-
flee for food. No apprehension, no fear
"a moment of pain, perhaps, and all is
over. 1t won't compare with the death
of man or child-not even with the
toothache or the neuralgia. Here was a
herd of swine that had been gathered
from all parts of this great country, and
they come in every day by the thousand,
and the long train of stock cars emptied
their live freight into the stock yards,
Ten thousand come every day and in the
winter twice as many. | wish that our
Southern boys could see 10000 big fat
hogs at one time. Before the war, when
the hog droyers of Tennessee used to
drive down their hogs to Atlanta and
Macon and Augusta, we thought 800 was
a great sight, and l 900 was a show equal
to circHs, and it didn't happen often.
but here are 10000 every day right now.
Smaller and smaller are the pens as they
near the great enclosure whose machin-
cry picks them up as dirty, hairy swine
and puts them out as canvassed hams
and clear ribbed sides and sausage and
souse and picked feet, and all of it done
with the precision of clock work and as
clean as the most careful farmer ever
killed his meat In November. Some
times we shot our hogs with a rifle and
it took good marksman to drop them
dead without a failure. Sometimes we
knocked them in the head with an axe
we did neither, for we wanted
the head left sound ana the brains I'M
clothed and so they were thrown on the
side and stuck to the heart and let alone.
1t is not a cruel death, for the hog has
not sensitive cuticle and that is all
that hurts. The doctors tell us that the
inside cutting does not give pain. /
have known a stuck hog to walk about
and nose an ear of corn while his life
blood was oozing out, and he crouched
gently to the ground and died without a
struggle.
BLOOD Is THICKER THAN WATER.
Our guide conducted us to the pen
that was nearest the butcher. We
climbed to a platform where we could
look down without being spattered, and
there we saw man down among the
hogs clamping the iron handouts on one
of their hind legs, and as fast as he did
so the rope that was attached to the
was pulled up by machinery
and the hog swung up six feet in the air
before he knew anything about it, 1t
took him SO by surprise that he squealed
a little and cavorted about, but not long.
The machinery soon carried him in
reach of the butcher, who gently caught
a fole foot with his left hand to steady
him and with his right gave tue fatal
blow, and, as the stream of blood flowed
out, the hog moved on to make room for
the next one. And so they come and die
and 60 every minute. yes, four to a min
wv III OlAatt man puolllIao rs W MIL AsjV
every hour for ten hours, and he does it
The blood does not run away fast, for
blood is thicker than water, and where it
gathers on the lower side it seemed to be
six or eight inches deep, and in one place
was half way up to the top of his boots.
They say that the butcher carries his to-
bacco in his bosom where it will get de-
Gently spattered, and he cuts his quid
with his bloody knife Our lad of a
guide told us that butchers are not al
lowed to set on jtIries over in England,
but / reckon he is mistaken. They are
not necessarily brutal men. This one
did not have repulsive face, Our good
old cook who rings chickens head off
every day is very kind to our little folks
and reckon that these bloody butchers
love their wives and are gentle and kind
to their children. For 1900 years the
butchering business was a religious duty,
1t began with Cain and continued along
down the line. Abraham took very
prominent part in it and when Solomon's
temple was dedicated there were $4,000
oxen and 10000 sheep sacrificed and
burned upon the affairs.
INTO BOILING WATER.
But what became of Mr.. Armour's
hogs? The machinery moved them
slowly on to a great vat of boiling water
and by this time they were dead and
were gently let down into it and the foot
cuff Embossed and some rollers or drags
under meath the water moved them
slowly to the other end, and as the hog
was lodged upon some strong iron fin
gers, they came up and lifted him up on
a platform that rolled him down slide
right under a wheel with cogs and brush
es all mixed up, and when he came out
from under that he was white and clean
all over except his ears and feet, Then
he was jerked up again and gammoned
in tha old .faShionad .yav ord HE I,n.l