734 



SLAUGHTERING BY MACHINERY. 



of the animals. This apparatus was first used 

 about the year 1864, on a patent issued to 

 John Martin. The application of steam-power 

 to the hoisting of the animals before killing 

 was first made in Milwaukee, and was merely 

 an improvement upon various hand-levers long 

 in use for the same purpose. Slaughtering by 

 machinery proper began with the introduction 

 of the automatic hog-scraper in 1878. As early 

 as 1873, R. Fyfe, of New York, secured a pat- 

 ent on a " rotary hog-scraper," and, in the same 

 year, Messrs. Neil& Dalton, of Jersey City, were 

 granted a patent for an u apparatus for scrap- 

 ing hogs." Other patents for similar devices 

 were issued to half a dozen inventors, but not 

 until 1878 was mechanical scraping success- 

 fully accomplished. The machine invented 

 by John Bouchard and Michael Cudahy, of 

 Chicago, and patented by the former in De- 

 cember, 1880, was then adopted in several of 

 the large abattoirs in Chicago, Milwaukee, and 

 Kansas City. The use of machinery in slaugh- 

 tering is confined almost altogether to hog- 

 abattoirs, though beeves, after being shot in 

 the brain, or stunned by hammer-blows upon 

 the forehead, are lifted by steam-power appli- 

 ances to the hanging position, in which their 

 throats are cut and entrails removed. At the 

 head of a hog-slaughtering gangway are sev- 

 eral small pens, in one or more of which work- 

 men are busy affixing loop-chains to the hind 

 legs of the animals. An attendant pulls a 

 lever, and the hog is quickly lifted clear of the 

 pen and carried, head downward, upon a hang- 

 ing-rail to the killing-pen. Here stands the 

 sticker, covered with blood and knife in hand. 

 As the hogs slide slowly past him, he seizes 

 each one by a fore leg, pulls the throat toward 

 him, and quickly pierces the heart with his 

 knife, taking care to make an opening in the 

 breast and neck large enough to permit a free 

 and rapid flow of the blood. In two minutes 

 the sliding carcass has reached the end of the 

 sticking-pen, where life is supposed to be ex- 

 tinct, though it sometimes happens that this is 

 not the case. Here a workman removes the 

 chain from the leg and places it over a wire, 

 on which it slides back to the catching-pen. 

 The carcass then drops into the scalding- vat, 

 which is eight feet wide and thirty feet long, 

 and filled with water kept at boiling tempera- 

 ture by a constant injection of steam. Two 

 workmen float the carcass through the tub 

 and upon a large iron cradle operated by steam- 

 power, which lifts the carcass from the vat and 

 throws it upon a table. An iron hook is here 

 inserted in the jaw and affixed to one of the 

 links of an endless chain, which drags the 

 steaming carcass, head first, into the scraping- 

 machine. This (Bouchard's) consists of a series 

 of wheels whose peripheries are protruding, 

 elastic steel blades, each sixteen inches long 

 and four wide, and set in triplets. The ends 

 of the blades are turned sharply inward the 

 sixteenth of an inch, forming rims of the 

 sharpness of the bent edge of a sheet of zinc. 



There are nine of these bladed wheels, all re- 

 volving in a direction the reverse of that in 

 which the carcass is drawn through the ma- 

 chine. One end of the shaft of each wheel is 

 set in a mitred or movable bearing, and bal- 

 anced with hanging weights, so that the scrap- 

 ing blades are not only brought to bear upon 

 all portions of the hide of the carcass, but are 

 automatically adjusted to animals of varying 

 sizes. The hogs are all drawn through the 

 machine in the same position, and each of the 

 nine scraper- wheels is designed to remove the 

 hair from a certain portion of the surface. An 

 average of four fifths of the hide of each car- 

 cass is scraped clean. The hide is not bruised 

 or marked, and is left cleaner and whiter, and 

 of more uniform color, than by hand-scraping. 



From the scraping-machine the carcass pass- 

 es into the care of a gang of hand-scrapers, 

 who carefully remove the remaining hair; 

 each workman has a certain portion assigned 

 him for his attention, and, as soon as he has 

 performed his share of the work, he passes the 

 carcass to his neighbor. In less than a minute 

 the end of the bench is reached, where, with 

 three strokes of his knife, one workman nearly 

 severs the head, while another affixes the gam- 

 brel and pulls a lever, which lifts the carcass 

 and suspends it from the overhead track, down 

 whose incline it slides to the gutting and clean- 

 ing room. Each slaughter-gang consists of 120 

 men, working between the catching-pens and 

 the hanging or chill room, in which the car- 

 casses are left hanging overnight, in order 

 that all animal heat may have disappeared 

 from the meat before it is sent to the packing 

 department. In one slaughter-house, that of 

 Armour & Co., there are three of these killing- 

 gangs for hogs alone, and in the busiest season 

 from 8,000 to 12,000 hogs are killed and packed 

 every day. Each pig-sticker kills nearly 500 

 animals an hour ; and the gang of 120 men can 

 slaughter, scrape, and dress 4,000 hogs in ten 

 hours, with the assistance of this labor-saving 

 machinery ; whereas, by the old methods, the 

 same number of men could kill and clean but 

 1,600 hogs. 



Similar appliances are used in all the large 

 abattoirs of the West. Some of the hog-scrap- 

 ing machines consist of a series of rollers over 

 which the carcasses are passed, workmen hold- 

 ing them in the required positions. Another 

 is an upright cylinder containing a series of 

 revolving knives, between which the carcass 

 passes, emerging at the top of the cylinders. 

 The Bouchard apparatus is the most success 

 fill, chiefly in its quality of automatic adapta- 

 bility to animals of all sizes and varying shapes 

 Devices have also been patented for gutting, 

 cleaning, quartering, and cutting up hog-car- 

 casses, but none has come into use. 



There are in Chicago thirty-one pork-pack 

 ing and six beef-packing firms, with estimatec 

 capital invested of $15,000,000. During H 

 they slaughtered 5,148,160 hogs, 1,588,874 cat 

 tie, and 739,578 sheep, valued as follows: hogs, 



