The Globe-republican. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1889-1910, 1900-01-18
FLOATING STABLES.
LINERS WHICH CARRY
CATTLE TO EUROPE.
From 10000 to 100000 Live steers
shipped from American Ports Every
xear-CattIe Soon Get Their Sea
Legs. "


to Eupore every year Most of the
shipping is done from New York, Bos-
ton and Montreal Some of it is done
from Philadelphia, and Norfolk, and
quite little bit from Baltimore and
Portland.
"A steamer has to be especially
rugged up to take cattle,'' said the boss
cattIeman of big Chicago house the
other day. They generally put them
between decks-that's under the big
deck on which passengers promenade
when she's a passenger ship Down
between decks the floor is divided or
into rows of wide stalls, about four
steers to stall. Two planks a foot
wide set on edge and locked above and
below make the partitions between
stalls There will be four or five tiers
of these stalls across the deck There's
cleats in the deck for the cattle to hold
on by. In rough weather they'd slide
all over the deck from one side to the
other rs she rolled if they didn't have
the cleatS. You'd be surprised how a
big clumsy bullock gets he can keep
his place in a rough sea after couple
of days aboard ship It's a fact they
don't tumble about sometimes much
as the men that feed them
..Catt1e are fed three times a day. At
4 in the morning they are given water
and then hay. About IL o'clock we
give them a feed of cornnea1 or corn
cob, according to what kind of cattle
they are-stal1-fed or ranch At
o'clock we water them again. They
don't generally drink SO much in the
afternoon in the morning, but it's
nothing for a thirsty steer to put down
six or seven full pals of water after a
warm night at sea. At O'Clock
feed them again, hay or corn. That
ends them for the day. We allow
about five bales of hay to a hundred
bullocks at each feeding-that's about
the average. Their meal feed will be
about pailfu1 each-meal comes only
once day.
Eve don't lose many cattle. I han
died 5000 last year and lost four. Two
of them died from the heat while we
were in dock on this side. 1t was hot
weather, and these fellows had been a
week on the road in the cars. Cattle
have to be allowed out of the cars
every forty-eight hours, according to
law, when they're coming across the
country, but that doesn't always save
them in hot weather. The other two
steers 1 lost in a different way.
One of them strangled himself with his
head-rope in the ship. The other bull
lock broke his leg going ashore. How
ever, we don't count cattle that way a
loss to the firm They're all insured
for about 500 apiece, and the 1nsur-
ance companies have to make them
good
t@The worst disaster I ever saw in
which cattle played a part was when a
big liner I was on with $50 cattle in my
charge struck an iceberg in midOcean.
The ship had to be lightened and the
cattle were chosen as the sacrifice. We
rugged up tackle and hauled them up
one by one. One of us stood by with
a razor-edge knife strapped to the end
of a SiX-fOOt pole AS the steers swung
overheard a touch of the knife was
given to them and it was all over with
them The head-rope was taut 1t
parted in flash. After they were
dropped over they turned and swan
after the ship-we were going pretty
slow at the time, and some of these
bu11ocks stayed with a long time.
We had them for miles, they looking
up with their big eyes and trying to
climb up the sides of the ship
t.A1l the cattle worth mentioning go
ing to England are landed at Liver
pool or London. Those going to Scot
land are landed at Glasgow 1t is Liv-
erpool, though that gets the big bulk
of them All cattle imported from this
country must be killed within ten days
after they are put ashore in England to
meet a law with view to preventing
the spread of disease. Cattle are sold
almost soon they are landed An
avera ge-sized bullock will weigh, say,
1 500 pounds on the hoof. He Will net,
say, 500 pounds of dressed beef OF
than others. After dressing there's
about 600 pounds left No part of
steer is left to waste Everything can
be used for some purpose and so is OF
some value Altogether the firm gets
about 500, may be little less, for a
steer in a fair market in England
What does it cost to get him therez
Well, as near I can figure, it is from
$50 to $50 a trifle more Looks like
a good bargain, but that is under good
average 81 or So head every steer
they handle They shipped perhaps
40, 900 last year Not SO bad at the end
of the year, Mo- but they're liable to
lose that much some years, and there's
not the money there was in 1T. Com
! petition is crowdIng here as well as
everywhere else
History Repeating Itself
Assistant Rector with self-com pla-
i cent cOnceit)-s1Aw-mI did pretty