SLATE 



SLAUGHTER-HOUSES 



497 



adoption and abuse of English words by Parisians, 

 who, for example, believing that five o'clock means 

 to drink tea, nave formed the remarkable slang 

 verb fiveocloquer, and even say Fiveocloquons-nous 

 d quatre heuresl Parliamentary, military, sporting, 

 legal and literary, stage, showmen's, shopkeepers', 

 .nd stock-exchange slang, and that of different 

 callings or trades are all extremely interesting, 

 since there is not one that has not many very old 

 words, often of Norse or Celtic origin, wnich nave 

 not as yet been much investigated. By far the 

 most prolific source of slang of late years Las been 

 the American. This has for a ' stem obsolete Eng- 

 lish and provincial terms which have been retained 

 chiefly in New England and the West, and which 

 are really not slang, though so called. To these 

 may be added words of German, Dutch, Canadian, 

 French, Red Indian, Negro, and Spanish origin. 

 But by far the most amusing part of Americanisms 

 are the constantly improvised proverbs, sayings, 

 and quaint allusions, eccentric oaths and condensed 

 anecdotes, which, when thrown off in conversation, 

 soon find their way into a newspaper. 



The principal works on this subject are Harman's 

 Caveat for Common Cortetors, vulgarly called Vagabones 

 (1566); the Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew (no date), 

 containing a vocabulary of Canting, miscalled Gypsy; 

 Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785); 

 Bacchus and Vcnut (1737), with a canting vocabulary, 

 republished as the Scoundrels' Dictionary. (This dic- 

 tionary is uid to have appeared by itself in 1710 as 

 A Dictionary of the Canting Crew. ) The first work of 

 any value on this subject in which slang was treated 

 in its true sense was the Slang Dictionary of John 

 Camden Hotten (1859). Its editor unfortunately 

 had no knowledge of Romany, and the existence of 

 Shelta or Tinkers' talk was not known to him. A 

 Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, by Professor A. 

 Barrere and Charles Godfrey Leland, contains American- 

 isms, Gypsy, Shelta, Pidgin English, Anglo-Indian, and 

 other terms, with a history of English Slang ( 2 vols. Lond. 

 1885; new ed. 1897). Slang and its Analogues, by 

 John Farmer (Lond. 1890 et teg.), contains synonyms 

 in the principal modern languages. American slang: 

 see the article AMERICANISMS; John R. Bartlett, 

 Dictionary of Americanisms (New York, 1848, and 

 Cambridge, Mass., 1877); J. S. Farmer, American- 

 isms, Old and Sew (privately printed; Lond. 1888); 

 Americana, by Charles Godfrey Leland. Gypsy: see 

 works of George Borrow, Larengro, Romany Rye, &c., 

 *nd Dialect of the English Gypsies, by Dr Bath Smart 

 and Crofton (1863-88). See also the articles GYPSIES 

 and SHELTA, with works there cited. Anglo-Indian : Sir 

 Henry Yule and A. Brunei 1 , Olossary of Anglo-Indian 

 Colloquial Words and Phrases (1886). French Slang: 

 Barrere, Argot and Slang (Lond. 1887); and the French 

 works of Larchey (1880), Rigaud (1881), Delvau (1883), 

 nd Vitn (1890). German Slang: Ave-Lallemant, 

 Deuttches Gaunerthum (1862) ; Genthe, Deutsches Slang 

 (1892). Pidgin English : Pidgin English, Battadi, with 

 vocabulary of the Jargon, by Charles G. Leland (1886). 



Slate, or CLAY-SLATE ( Fr. esclat, a ' shiver ' or 

 'splinter'), is a highly metamorphosed argillaceous 

 rock, fine-grained and fissile, and of a dull blue, 

 gray, purple, or green colour. A red slate is found 

 at Acton, Quebec. Slate splits into thin laminae 

 or plates, that are altogether independent of the 

 layers of deposit ; though sometimes coinciding 

 with them, they more frequently cross them at 

 different angles (see CLEAVAGE). Some rocks 

 that split into the thin plates of the original 

 stratification are popularly out erroneously named 

 slate, as thin bedded sandstones properly called 

 flagstones or tilestones, sometimes used for roofing. 

 True slate is a very compact rock, little liable to 

 be acted upon by atmospheric agencies. It is 

 chiefly obtained from Palaeozoic strata, but it is 

 found also among more recent rocks. It is used 

 for various purposes, being split into thin slabs of 

 small size for ordinary roofs and into larger slabs 

 for dairy fittings, wash-tubs, cisterns, tables, &c., 

 448 



and, when polished, for writing-slates and ' black- 

 boards.' School slates are manufactured in very 

 large numbers in Wales. They are split, like 

 roofing slates, by hand ; but the sawing, grinding, 

 and polishing processes are done by machinery : 

 the making of the wood frames for them being also 

 done by machines. Recently slate has been used 

 in the United States for coffins, and there and 

 elsewhere it has for some time past been cut into 

 gravestones, for which it is not very suitable. 

 There are extensive quarries of roofing-slate in 

 Wales and Scotland, and in the Ardennes in Franco, 

 some of which have been wrought for a long time. 

 For some years previous to 1891 the average annual 

 Quantity of slates quarried or mined in England and 

 Wales amounted to about 450,000 tons ( value one 

 million sterling), Carnarvonshire and Merioneth- 

 shire furnishing nine-tenths of the whole ; and 

 among the great slate-quarries there may be 

 mentioned those of Penrhyn (near Bethesda), 

 Llanberis, and Festiniog. Considerable but much 

 smaller quantities are produced in Argyllshire in 

 Scotland and in some counties in Munster, Ireland. 

 Welsh slates are largely exported to Germany and 

 Australia. In the United States not far from 

 one-half of all the slates produced are quarried in 

 Pennsylvania, but Vermont, Maine, New York, 

 Maryland, and Virginia also yield large quantities. 

 Slate is known to be plentiful in Arkansas, Cali- 

 fornia, Utah, and in Canada. The annual value of 

 the slates quarried in the States is over 700,000 

 (717,680 in 1889). The debris of slate-quarries is 

 made into bricks. ' Enamelled slate ' mantelpieces 

 are made of slate painted and stoved. 



In roofing with slates it is necessary to put 

 them on in two thicknesses, so that the sloping 

 joints may be covered by the overlap of the course 

 above. Besides this, the third course must also 

 cover the first by 

 an inch or two, to 

 prevent rain from 

 penetrating. Slates 

 are generally laid 

 upon boarding, and 

 bedded in lime, and 

 nailed with malle- 

 able-iron nails, gal- 

 vanised, so as to pre- 

 vent them from rusting. When large strong slates 

 are used they may be nailed to strong laths in 

 place of boarding. Welsh slates are the smoothest 

 and most generally used ; but Argyllshire slates 

 are stronger and better when the roofs are liable 

 to be injured. See D. C. Davies, Slate and Slate- 

 quarrying (3d ed. 1887). 



Slate-pencils are either cut or turned sticks 

 of soft slate, or they are made by pressing mois- 

 tened slate powder until it is firm enough to be 

 made into pencils. 



Slaughter-houses, or ABATTOIRS, premises 

 in which cattle are slaughtered and prepared for 

 human food. In modern Europe France took the 

 lead in attending to this important matter ; a com- 

 mission appointed by Napoleon issued in the con- 

 struction in 1818 of the five Parisian abattoirs, 

 which served as the model to other towns and 

 countries. London cannot be said to have followed 

 suit till the Islington market was opened in 1855. 

 Edinburgh has had a well-appointed abattoir since 

 1851 ; and in the United States many cities have 

 provided carefully for this important public neces- 

 sity. Sanitary authorities are agreed tnat the estab- 

 lishmentof a public abattoirunder propersupervision 

 tends to ensure the supply of wholesome meat, but 

 neither the English Public Health Act of 1867 nor 

 the Local Government Act, 1889, gives powers to 

 erect or maintain such premises. A number of 



