328 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



An adjoining building appeared nearly full of 

 sheep's feet, neatly tied up — not as Nature had 

 arranged them, in fours, but — in dozens. 



On entering a range of 48 melting-houses, 

 admirably ventilated, I was astonished to find 

 that, although they were nearly full of pails of 

 tallow, there was no unpleasant smell. Above 

 are a series of apartments, in which reside the 

 women and men employed in this operation, 

 which I had always incorrectl}^ fancied to be 

 unavoidably very offensive. 



In proceeding towards the 64 boucheries ar- 

 ranged in the middle of the entrance, I went 

 into one of the bouveries, to look at a bullock 

 that my conductor told me was just going to be 

 slaughtered. 



It was a beautiful morning, and, although the 

 sun was hot, the atmosphere, where I stood, 

 felt quite refreshing. He was lying in a cell by 

 himself, perfectly tranquil, on clean straw, and, 

 with his fore-legs doubled under him, was chew- 

 ing the cud. His great black nose, which al- 

 most touched the white litter, was wet and 

 healthy ; his eyes were bright ; his tail quiet, 

 for, as the air Avas cool, there was not even a 

 fly to tease him. 



As we were gazing at each other, a butcher, 

 carrying a short rope, followed by a boy hold- 

 ing in his right hand a stick, in which I par- 

 ticularly observed there was no goad, walked 

 up to him, and gently putting the noose over 

 his horns, and then making him arise, he quietly 

 conducted him to his doom. The poor creature 

 walked slowly through the hot sunshine with 

 perfect willingness, until he arrived at the 

 threshold of the broad door of the slaughter- 

 house, where suddenly stopping, he lent back- 

 wards, and stretched out his head, evidently 

 alarmed at the smell of blood. The butcher 

 now slightly pulled at the rope. Without bark- 

 ing of dogs or hallooing of men, without the 

 utterance of an imprecation or of a single word, 

 four slight blows on the right hock with the 

 boy's stick made him, after looking for a second 

 or so fearfully to the right and left, hurriedly 

 enter, after which he instantly appeared to be- 

 come quite quiet. The rope from his head was 

 now gently passed under his off fore-leg, and, 

 on its bein^ tightened, a couple of men in 

 wooden shoes, clattering towards him over the 

 wet slippery pavement, by a sudden push on 

 his near side tumbled him over. He was scarcely 

 down when one blow of. a mallet made him 

 completely senseless, two others were given 

 him for precaution's sake, and a butcher then, 

 forcing his knife into his broad chest, instantly 

 withdrew it. 



There was a dead silence for some seconds ; 

 notwithstanding the color of the knife, the 

 blade of which I observed pointing to the 

 ground, no effect was produced. At last out 

 rushed a stream or river of blood, which, first 

 black and then bright red, flowed in little waves 

 along a gutter into a receptacle made to contain 

 it. 



As the great creature lay lifeless before me, I 

 felt very forcibly how extraordinary was the 

 fact, that while the Demon of War — Napoleon 

 Buonaparte — had, it 1811, established in Paris 

 the merciful arrangements I had witnessed, it 

 had taken the Goddess of Peace upwards of six- 

 and-thirty years to prevail upon the inhabitants 

 of England in general, and upon the Lord 

 Mayor and Corporation of London in particular, 

 to abolish a system not only of barbarous 

 cruelty, but which, by creating feverish excite- 

 ment, amounting occasionally to madness, has 

 rendered more or less unAvholesome the meat of 

 every wretched victim that has been killed in a 

 metropolis (consuming annually 240,000 bul- 

 locks, 1,700,000 sheep, 28,000 calves, and 35,000 

 pigs) whose inhabitants, as if in satirical ridi- 

 cule of themselves, delight publicly in singing, 

 when in large congregations they sit down to 

 dinner — 



"Oh, the roast beef of old England, 

 And oh, the old English roast beef!" 



Several calves were now driven into a yard 

 containing four or five tressels, upon which, one 

 after another, they were placed on their sides 

 by men in wooden shoes, who held them down, 

 while butchers — also in sabots — not only cut 

 their throats, but their heads quite off; thus in 

 a few seconds most effectually combining death 

 with the operation of bleeding, which, in Eng- 

 land, is cruelly made to precede it. The blood 

 of each calf was caught in a pan by the men 

 who held it down. As fast as the animals were 

 killed, skinned, and cleaned, their carcases, by 

 means of ropes and pulleys, were hung up, ar- 

 ranged in lines, and then wrapped up in linen 

 cloths as white as snow. 



Observing to one of the butchers, who had 

 rather a red-republican-looking countenance, 

 that some of the sheep appeared to be very 

 thin:— 



"Ah!" said he, with a slight shrug and a 

 gentle sigh, "there are fat ones and lean ones, 

 for we must have meat for everybody." 



"And yet how does that agree," said I to my- 

 self, " with your fraternity and equality f 



As the hours for slaughtering were now 

 neiirly over, I had an opportunity of seeing the 

 simple process of sluicing, by means of an 

 abundant supply of water from a cock in each 

 of the 64 boucheries, the red slippery floors of 

 several of the slaughterhouses, which in the 

 course of a few minutes were made as sweet and 

 clean as the flags of a wash-house. As soon as this 

 was effected, the butchers, washing themselves, 

 and then slipping out of their wooden shoes, 

 walked to their rooms to assume the decent 

 dress in which they had entered, and in which 

 they were about to return to their respective 

 . homes. 



The charge at the abattoirs for killing cattle 

 is from one franc to one and a half per head ; 

 besides which the butcher claims, as his per- 

 quisite, the blood, brains, asd entrails. 



