The Republican journal., 1892-07-28
How Cattle are Slaughtered for Market.

ooIHt IdllN dy GldChS dlC GloSSSu, dIltt
the sightseer stands in the thick of a. clus-
ter of packing houses. From out OF a door
way under a phenomenally long porch
come huge sides of red and white beef, shot
out as if from a multiple cannon. These
great weights of meat hang from pulleys
that run upon a track overhead, and
they swing along one after another as
boards are turned out of a sawmill, and
with force enough to toss the men who
are paid to guide them as if the men were
jackstraws. These junks of meat were
moving in the pens a short while before;
now they are being loaded into refrigerator
cars. In this building the cattle are being
turned into butchers meat. l saw two
fat and comfortable steers coming out of
an alley, and was told that they were
trained to lead the other cattle to the foot
of an inclined and enclosed gangway,
there to turn and leave them, while the
other brutes went on and up the walk to
the slaughter pens. That is earning their
living-and an honest one-with a venge-
ance.
| saw that the beeves We're driven into
pens, and that men ran along or stood
over them on planks laid across the tops
of the pens. | saw that they jabbed and
prodded the poor beasts into the right
position for their purpose, and then shat
thew felled them with crushing blows of
hammers upon their skulls. Then the
doors of the pens were thrown open
chains We're fastened about the hind legs
OF the unconscious beasts, and they hung
upon Il trolley running on a single over
head rail. Silently and methodically the
slaughterers walked along and gashed
their Threats, and the mysterious red
essence of life was flung with drenchng
volume on the slippery floor. Rapidly, far
more rapidly than the reader would
believe unless he had seen it done, the
carcasses are sent back to the next and
the next and the next set of operatives to
have their hides taken otf-so skilfully
that they fetch more than any other hides
discarded by any other butchers in the
world-to have their entrails removed, to
have their heads and hoofs taken off, to
be split and washed, and to be sent
swinging along to the cooling rooms.
Silence, skill, expedition, these We're
the characteristics of all the labor in that
murderous place.
Everything without particularizing
too closely-every single thing that
appertains to slaughtered beef is sold
anu DuU W uSt. IIt uOIllS DcCOIlt LIE
horn of commere; the straight length Of
leg bone go to the cutlery makers and
others; the CUTS become sausage castings;
their contents make fertilizing material !:
the livers, hearts, tongues, and tails, and
the stomachs, that become tripe, all are
sold over the butchers counters OF the
nation; the knuckle bones are ground up
into bone flour for various uses: the blood
is dried and sold as Il powder for CONNER
cial uses: the bladders are dried and sold
to druggists, tobaccoiStS, and others: the
fat goes into oleomar9arine, and from the
! hoofs and feet and other parts come glue
and oil and fertilizing ingredients. Over
| the slaughtcrhouse | found series of
rooms heaped full of bones and horns.
The bones had been boiled to get the
| fat of the marrow as well as To clean them.
| Then they had been dried and shaken
| about until they We're as smooth and
| clean as cotton spools. The knuckle
| Joints had been cut off them, and one
room was filled with the ground-up flour
OF those parts. The white and pretty
! bones that remained were to be shipped
! to Connecticut, England, and Germany,
| to be worked into knifehandleS, fan
! handles, tooth brush handles. backs for
nail brushes, for penknives, and into
! button hook handles, shirt studs, cuff
! buttons, and so ON, dd mfnitum. What
was to become OF the horns was still
more astonishing. BY heating them
and then tapping them skilfully, the
| operatives had loosened the soft cellular
filling which solidities and strengthens
each horn. The substance around this.
between it and the inner surface of the
horn, goes for glue: the rest is ground up
| into bone meal The horns We're then to
| be sent to the makers Of horn goods.
| who. by cutting each horn skilfully and
| then pressing it between heavy rollers
| manage to spread each one out into a fiat
! ribbon. In this shape it can be used in Il
| thousand ways. The artiticers who do this
| work cut each horn spirally, so that it
becomes a tight curl capable OF being
Strengthened out. BY immense pressure
the curve is taken out of it. Good horns
sell at s125 a ton. 1t is by such thorough
economy and ingenuity-by losing moth
ing and wasting notliing-tlat the
great firms in this business have monopo-
LIKED their field. A small butcher in the
! East cannot kill his meat and market it in
competition with the stockyards packers,
| because he must waste what they save
and sell.
/, made a tour of the refriyeratng or cool
ing rooms. They are kept at tempera-
ture of 362. | believe. Yet, when the meat
fresh from the slaughter is railroaded
into such a room, the animal heat in it
| warns the room for a considerable time
and fills it with steam as with "a fog
Once it is cooled, the sides of beef are
firm and hard and almost appetizing.
Everywhere, except at the actual scene of
slaughter, these houses and the work in
them are clean and above criticism
Willie looked on, they We're killing four
beeves a minute, or 25O in every hour
There were slaughtered in those stock
yards during 1890 no less than 2,219,3 BIZ
head of cattle, more than /. 900, 900 sheep.
and ), 1:,,3 0Sz hogs.
AS | passed out of the yards some one
handed a card to me. 1t contained Il
| record OF the business Of one firm, the
leading one of the ''big four packing
concerns. 1t showed that during the
year ending April 1,1S91. that company
transacted sales of SG6, 600 600 worth of
meat and other goods. 1t killed 7l2, 600
cattle, l. ia, 600 hogs. and nearly 800 600
sheep. 1t employed 1900 persons, and
paid nearly -, 600. 600 in wages. 1t owned
>. 25O refrigerator cars and 80 acres of
buildings. 1t made 1000, 600 pound of
glue and 9 500 tons of fertilizer sus-
pect that its hogs and sheep and boxes of
glue and sides of beef and cans of meat