KEPOET OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 365 



but almost invariably tlie animal after it is first dropped evinces no 

 further sign of life except a convulsive kick when the spinal mar- 

 row is severed. As soon as the throat is cut the skin of the head is 

 flayed and thrown back on the hide ; the head itself is cut off ; a chain 

 is passed round the hind legs, and the animal is hoisted from the 

 ground and suspended to a steel bar or " run" over a wooden gutter 

 running down the middle of the floor, and is allowed to hang there 

 until all the blood has drained out of its body. This takes from ten 

 to fifteen minutes. The whole process of felling, slaughtering, de- 

 capitating, and hanging up on the "run" to bleed has occupied not 

 longer than a minute and a half. The thorough method adopted of 

 bleeding the animal is an important feature in the system of slaugh- 

 tering. All the arteries of the neck being severed, and the animal 

 being hung up, neck downwards, whilst the circulation is still hot 

 and active, there is no possibility of the blood coagulating in the 

 carcass, as in the case of cattle allowed to lie on the floor until they 

 are half skinned and partly dressed. 



It is a marked peculiarity of the system adopted at the great pack- 

 ing-houses, in some of which 2,000 to 3,000 cattle are killed in a day, 

 that the victims manifest none of the restiyeness and painfully obvi- 

 ous alarm observable in cattle dragged into a country slaughter- 

 house to be butchered. They seem to have no premonition of their 

 fate until felled by the sledge-hammer, and after that there are no 

 signs of consciousness. It is murder reduced to a fine art. There is 

 so little unusual or alarming noise that even the steer in the next 

 pen to the one that is being slaughtered shows no uneasiness and be- 

 trays no anticipation that it is its turn next. Other methods of kill- 

 ing shooting with a rifle, or spearing the base of the brain haf^e 

 been tried, but felling with a sledge-hammer, when skillfully done, 

 is found by experience to be the most speedy and humane method, 

 and it is now generally followed. 



After the carcass of the slaughtered steer has been thoroughly 

 drained it is carried along on the "run" to the skinning bed, where 

 it is lowered on its back and split from the breast-bone backward, 

 and the skin is loosened from the sides by a peculiar free sweep of 

 the knife requiring long practice to accomplish. While in this 

 position the caul fat is removed and applied to purposes hereafter 

 described in connection with the manufacture of oleo oil. Then the 

 animal is again hoisted to the "run" and the paunch, intestines, 

 etc. , are taken out and the hide removed, after which it is split down 

 the back and becomes two sides of beef. These are carried on 

 runners to another part of the slaughter-house, where the flesh is 

 thoroughly washed on the inside, and wiped on the outside with a 

 clean dry cloth. It is afterwards permitted to remain in the ante- 

 room of the cooling-room until the animal heat has gradually passed 

 away. The beef is then run into the cooling-room and chilled for 

 from twenty to forty-eight hours according to weight. The largest 

 packing-houses have four of these cooling-rooms, each with a ca- 

 pacity of 900 carcasses, but usually, in order to insure free circula- 

 tion of air, not more than 600 beeves are hung in any one room at 

 the same time. A uniform temperature of about 38 F. is main- 

 tained in the cooling-rooms, by means of artificially iced brine, 

 pumped by powerful engines into pipes running round the sides of 

 the room. Electric lamps penetrate to every corner of the building, 

 and give weird effects of light and shade as the different gangs of 

 white-f rocked workmen move about among the ruddy carcasses. 



