352 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



corruption and pestilence, and of all that is odious and disgust 

 ing, will feel no little surprise at their particularity and fastidious 

 ness in regard to their meats. But these are among the incon 

 sistencies and anomalies of human nature, which are to be found 

 among persons in almost every condition. The same inconsist 

 ency is seen, for example, among the lower class of Irishwomen 

 in their own country, however humble in condition, with whom 

 it seems to be the ruling, and an indomitable passion, to have a 

 clean and handsome cap, though in most other respects one 

 would be half inclined to think they were laboring under a 

 species of hydrophobia. You will see them, the head surmounted 

 with an elegant frilled cap, emulating the whiteness of the 

 drifted snow, while the lower parts of the person, in a state of 

 nudity, (for the drapery of the statue of an Irishwoman seldom 

 extends below the knee,) though, as pieces of sculpture, exhibiting 

 originally the highest artistical skill, are yet so rough, and torn, 

 and begrimed and stuccoed with mud and dirt, that you can 

 hardly believe that both ends belong to the same person, and 

 that the head has not by some awkward mistake got upon the 

 wrong shoulders. 



3. MODE OF SLAUGHTERING ANIMALS. I have felt it a duty 

 of humanity to inquire into the mode of slaughtering animals. 



state of Bristol, may serve to clear up some of my friend s doubts on the subject. 

 Report on Lancashire, p. 30. 



&quot; Have you resided some time in this house ? &quot; &quot; Yes, for several years.&quot; 



&quot; What occupation does your neighbor pursue ? &quot; &quot; He kills pigs, which he 

 gets over from Ireland. Often the pigs, in coming over in the packet, die, and I 

 have seen as many as thirty dead pigs at a time brought into the yard. They are 

 thrown into the shed there until there is time to cut them up ; and by that time I 

 have seen the maggots fairly dropping out of them. Then they are cut up, and, 

 I believe, are made into salt bacon, or sold for sausages.&quot; * * * 



&quot; Have you not complained of this nuisance ? &quot; &quot; Yes, we have ; but we were 

 told it was of no use complaining, for doctors agreed that these smells were very 

 healthy. Besides, the owner of the yard is a very good neighbor, and tries to 

 keep things as clean as he can ; but his occupation beats him in that.&quot; 



What can go beyond this ? But why, it may be asked, refer to such cases ? 

 Because, in order to correct an abuse, and to guard against it, that abuse should 

 be exposed. Nor is it without a melancholy instruction, to see to what extremes 

 avarice will hurry its votaries ; nor without a moral use, to hold up the perpetra 

 tors of such wickedness towards the poor and ignorant to the execration which 

 they deserve. 



