Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1892-08-12
A GREAT INDUSTRY.
SLaUGHTERlNG CATTLE IN A
- CHICAGO PACKING HOUSE.
Scores of Live Steers Rapidly Turned
Into Sides of Beet Every Part
of the Animal Utilized
--Cooliug Rooms.

a cluster of packing houses. From out
of doorway under phenomenally long
porch come huge signs of red and white
beef, shot out as if from multiple eau
non. These great weights of meat hang
from pulleys that run upon track over
head, and they are swung along one
after another as boards are turned out Of
a sawmill, aud with force enough to toss
the men who are paid to guide them as
if the men were jackstraws. These iunks
of meat were moving in the pens short
while before; now they are being loaded
into refrigerator cars. In this building
the cattle arc being turned into butchers
meat. | saw two fat and comfortable
steer coming out of al alley, aud was
told that they were trained to lead the
other cattle to the foot of an incline and
enclosed gangway, there to turn and
leave them, while the other brutes went
on and up the walk to the slaushtering-
pens. That is earning their living-aud
an honest one-with a vengencei
saw that the beeves were driven into
pens, and that men ran along or stood
over them on planks laid across the tops
of the pens. l saw that they jabbed and
prodded the poor beasts into the right
position for their purpose, and then that
they felled them with crushing blows of
hammers upon their skulls. Then the
doors of the pens were thrown open,
chains were fastened about the hind legs
of the unconscious beasts, and they were
swung up so that they hung upon a ,rol-
ley running on a single overhead rail.
Silently and methoiically the slaughter
crs walked along and gashed their
tbroats, and the mysterious rcd essence
of life was flung with drenching volume
on the slippery floor. Rapidly, far more
rapidly than the reader would believe
unless be 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 of--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 aud 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 closeIy-every single thing that ap-
pertains to a slaughtered beef is sold and
nut to use The horns become the horn
Of commerce; the straight lengths of
leg bone 90 to the cutlery-makers and
others; the CUTS become sausage castings;
their contents make fertilizing material;
the liyers, hearts, tongues, aud tails, aud
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 a powder for
commercial uses; the bladders are dried
and sold to druggists, tobacconists, and
others; the fat goes into olemargarine,
and from the hoofs and feet aud other
parts come glue and oil and fertilizng
Ingredients. Over the slaughter house
l found a series of rooms heaped full of
bones aud horns. TIE bones mad been
boiled to get the fat of the marrow as
we'll as to clean them. Then they had
been dried and shaken about until they
were as smooth and clean as cotton
spoos. The knuckle joints had been
cut of them, and one room was filled
with the ground-up -four of those parts.
The white and pretty bones that re
NAMED were to be shipped to Connect
cut, England and Germany, to be
worked into knife handles, fan-handles,
tooth brush handles, backs for nail
brushes, sides for penknives, and into
button hook handles, shirts studs, cuff
buttons, aud so on, al ininitum. What
was to become of the horns was still more
astonishing. By heating them and thea
tapping them skillfully, the operatives had
loosened the soft cellular filling which
solidifss and strengthens each horn.
The substance around this, between it
and the inner surfsce of the horn, goes
for glue; the rest is ground up into bone
meal. The horns were then to be sent
to the makers of horn goods, who, by
cutting each horn skillfully and then
pressing it between heavy rollers, man
age to spread each one out into fat
ribbon. In this shape it can be use in
thousand ways. The artiicers who do
this work cut each horn spirally, so that
it becomes tight curl capable of being
Strengthened out. By immense pressure
the curve is taken out Of it. Good horns
sell at 3l25a ton. 1t is By such thorough
economy and ingenuity-by losing moth
ing aud wasting nothing-:hat the great
firms iD this business have monopolized
their field. A small butcher in the Est
cannot kill his meat aud market it in
competition with the stock yards pack
ers, because he must waste what they
save aud sell.
made tour Of the re'rigerating or
cooling rooms. They are kept at tenn
perature OF thirty-six degrees, believe.
Yet, when the meat fresh from the