The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1905-05-31
A VISIT TO A PACKING HOUSE
The Process of Slaughter.
Victor I. Masters ia Columbia State.

| toolhsome, GOING TenQer Up your lie
that l may onicy pleasant sensations
in ny palate for some moments and
stomachio repletinn for few hours
has certain element of hardness
and cruelty in it, albeit ] be dubbed
guilty of needless sentimentality for
the assertion. Fortunately no one
talks to the chicken as I have; be jsst
cuts its head off, which has the ad.
vantage of being direct and pointed
mode Of procedure, which suits sci.
6shness.
And in those CORY rooms, all spat-
tered and red with the fresh life's
blood Of tho cattle Of many hill and
tIe Innocent sheep Of the pasture,
there is no moralizing and rejecting,
and no vein of sentiment touches the
hundred men who, with busy rapidity,
usher the unending stream Of animals
to their end and their flesh to the
packing rooms. If animals had sop,s
what an endless fight of spirits there
would be from those awful rooms!
If they had hearts to feel and hope
and despair, what loud unending
vail of utter. despair would ascend
unto the heavens from these shambles!
And all that we may have steak or
pork chops for dinner! Products
which the health culturists and some
experience may have suggested to US
had hetter be tabooed for vegetable
diet!
But if you are sentimental when
you approach this house of death your
sentiments will pail in the presen ce
of the odors which proceed therefrom.
They slap you in the face, permeate
ycur clothing, enter your being, pos
sess your Imagination, consume your
thoughts, and seem to debilitate your
very conscience. [ am not expert in
perfumes, still less in antipodal scents.
But were a graduate in q school of
odors, the smell of the slaughter. room
OF q packing house would in itself be
o postgraduate COURSE which would
entitle me to an additional degree.
csnnot describe it, and you would not
wish to have it described. Tbs odors
in the packing rooms are really aple-
tizing and inviting, but those of the
slaughter-room and fertilizer depart
ments are anti.olimaxic in the ex-
treme. One member Of the party
could not stand it, but ran away, try
ing to cover his nose with a hand
kerchies, and the stimulated nose
seemed TO grow too big to be covered.
The slaughtering is simple. An
old decoy steer leads in new drove
CT cattle from adjacent pens. Down
the long room on brick pavements
they come. Two by two they are
closed in pens at the side Of the room.
Then come men with hammers and
knock them in the head. The ami
NAL falls with q thud, the body
quivers, chain is fastened about the
body and machinery liftsit up and
into an adjacent space, where the
throat is cut and the process begun
which will turn the body within an
Incredibly brief time into dozen
finished meat products.
Before the time has passed, which
is necessary to describe this, the old
decoy steer has marched back from
the pens Of destruction, from whicn
the chains have lifted his fallen breth-
rem, and ia nonehalentiy leading in
another three score Of candidates for
death. The old rascall But his own
end is drawing nigh. Some fateful
day he is not allowed to walk, back
from the ranks he has led on the
death march, but is hustled into one
of the pens with another, and in e.
trice his old carcass ia being hois.ed
By chains on the way to being fash.
ioned into s'tenderloin steak and
other like delioaoies. I never. killed
but ane beef, though reared or the
plantation, but I should like to strike
the blow that would end the iend-
ish old Sdesoy steer & of . slaughter
house. 81;
The process for hogs and sheep is
similar. bnt Quoted from different
slaughter pens. W 8 went through
the slaugh hter room fe. hesa. B An
endless chain Of hogs, each hung in
the usual fashion, the flesh still warm
with life, slowly moved about the
room bout 100 men stood in line,
each man with knife or other imple.
ment charged TO do d certain single
thing In the process sc dressing the ]
carenaa Ine = s1HB rooms, hen
the hog has reached the end of5 the
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