CO-OPEEATIVE SLAUGHTEK-HOUSES 59 



refused to advance the necessary capital, which was, however, 

 obtained from a savings bank in another town. The Town 

 Council of Horsens did not desire "to be encumbered " with 

 a slaughter-house, and the Sanitary Committee declared that 

 it might be injurious to the public health, and prohibited the 

 building of the slaughter-house on the site where it was already 

 in process of erection. Against this decision of the Sanitary 

 Committee of the town the directors of the slaughter-house 

 appealed, on the ground that the site was outside the boundary 

 of the town, and they gained the day. The Town Council then 

 required that the chairman of the bacon factory should take 

 out a licence both as a slaughterer and as a merchant ; and as 

 he refused, all the members of the managing committee were 

 fined individually for trading without a licence, and the double 

 licence had to be taken. All this opposition on the part of the i^***^ 

 town is characteristic of the feehng of the urban population 

 at that time towards the co-operative efforts of the rural 

 population. Some years later, when experience had shown 

 how great were the advantages which a co-operative bacon 

 factory brought to a town by the activity and trade it created 

 and the custom it brought to the dealers in the town, the 

 various towns vied with one another to become the domicile 

 of a new factory. 



On the 22nd December, 1887, the first killing was done in 

 the first Co-operative Bacon Factory, and during the first year 

 23,000 pigs were killed, a larger number than was expected. 

 The pigs were not all supplied by co-operators ; some were 

 bought from other farmers. This good result was obtained 

 notwithstanding a keen competition from the private curers, 

 who raised the price of pigs to prevent the co-operative factory 

 from buying. This competition was maintained during the 

 following years, with the result that, although about the same 

 number of pigs were killed, the economical result was less satis- 

 factory. There was even, at the annual general meeting in 

 1890, a considerable agitation for the sale of the factory; but 

 the storm blew over, only to be followed soon after by a greater 

 danger in the form of an attempt to amalgamate Horsens and 

 oth^ co-operative slaughter-houses with the private slaughter- 

 houses, as will be^nentioned below. 



