Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1895-08-09
OFFICIAL PAPER BURLEIGH co.

The American horse is an animal of
destiny-and that destiny appears to be
the slaughter house. The proud head
of Dobbin has come to be BUNDLED in
CRIME and offal of the abattoir, and his
hams are beng picked and sold as
common commercial commodities. AL
though it has been known for some time
that this would soon be the fate of a
large number of western horses, it is
said to read the grim details of slaughter
as they come from the Oregon packing
house. in the following words:
The first train load of horses to reach
Linton was a rough-and-tumble lot. They
were of all ages and colors. Cayuses and
half-breeds, equally as handy with their
feet as with their teeth. They would bite
or kick one another upon the slightest prov
o%cation. Upon arrival the horses were
placed in an immense corral, which was
located in a field of growing oats. From
the corral an inclined roadway led up to
the second story of the slaughter house.
When the foreman of the slaughter house
was ready he would call out "next," and a
horse would be trotted up the roadway to
the killing room, where the executiOner
stood, sledge hammer in hand, ready to
send the unsuspecting brute to the Elysian
horse plains, perhaps to be ridden by the
shades of departed Indians in the happy
hunting grounds where no sleet covers the
grass in winter to Starve the poor range
pony. There is nothing out OF the common
in the killing of a horse. BE is knocked
senseless by a blow on the forehead and
then bled to death by having his throat cut,
just like any other animal slaughtered for
domestic purposes. Just before the slaugh-
terjng commenced at Linnton several
horses, in attempting to escape, jumped
down an embankment and broke their
necks. 1t became necessary to first re-
move their carcasses. This was quickly
done. The legs were cut off at the knees
and the name and tail removed. Then a
slit was made the whole length Of the skin
and the head skinned and a part of the
neck. Next a rope was made fast to this
loose skin so that it could not slip and
fastened to the trunk of a tree.
A steady pair Of old horses were hitched
to the rope, and in ten seconds the skin
was off. A few cuts and slashes and the
carcasSes were in the steam tank, being
converted into fertilizer. The horse is a
pachydermatous animal, like the hog. All
of lis hide grows fast to the flesh, and
cannot be removed as easily as that of oxen
or sheep.
When all was in readiness the work of
slaughtering was commenced. The horses
were trotted upon the inclined roadway
and each inclosed in a pen. One by n
they were hit in the forehead with the
sledge hammer and their Threats cut. The
door of each pen was then lifted, the car
cass drawn out upon the floor, quickly
dressed and hung up. Trenches in the
floor and chute carried off the offal. In a
little while a number Of carcasses. were
suspended by the gambrels from iron
tracks above. A pile Of hoofs in one corner,
a pile Of horse tails in another, and the
length and slimness of the legs on the car.
casses were all that remained 10 indicate
to the inexperienced observer that any
thing unusual had been going O.