114 
RAILWAY WAGONS FOR MEAT TRANSPORT. 
will understand something of the torments to which the 
cattle have to submit and the probable effect upon the flesh 
as human food, of their long confinement in these pest 
houses denominated cattle cars.^^ Persons of delicate 
organization have been known to faint from the effects of 
the stench of the passing trains, and the effeet upon the 
health of the animals must be very prejudicial, rendering 
them unfit for human food. By the adoption of the re¬ 
frigerating car all this can be changed for the betterp^ The 
cattle are slaughtered and dressed when in their best con¬ 
dition, and the meat there packed directly into the car, and 
thus transported to the points of consumption. These cars 
are of the eight-wheeled freight pattern, built of two thick¬ 
nesses of three-quarter-inch pine plank, three inches apart. 
In the intervening space three-inch slabs of cork are inserted, 
cork being considered the best non-conductor of heat. On 
the top of the car is a flutter wheel of zinc, working hori¬ 
zontally by the current of air created during the motion of 
the train. On the same spindle with this wheel is a revolv¬ 
ing fan, which throws the air through flues the entire length 
of the car to the ice-chambers at each end. It is here cooled 
and condensed, and falls through other flues to the floor, 
passing under the hanging meat, and enveloping it as it rises 
to the ceiling. The temperature maintained is forty-two 
degrees. 
These cars can carry from 20,000 lb. to 25,000 lb. each, 
and the meats invariably come forward in excellent condition. 
' The benefits of this system in brief are—a saving in weight 
to the owners of the cattle, the abolishment of slaughter¬ 
houses in or near cities, the retention of the refuse matter to 
be returned to the soil through the compost heaps where the 
cattle were raised—a most important matter—and the im¬ 
proved character of the meat brought to market. If there 
were no question but that of the greater humanity of this 
method of treatment of cattle, it ought to be decisive in 
favour of this system, but there are other questions all in 
favour of it. For sanitary reasons the system should be 
adopted; first, that it enables cities to get rid of slaughter¬ 
houses, those great pests of every inhabited neighbourhood. 
Second, that the meat is preserved in a more healthy and fit 
state for human food. The return of the refuse matter of 
slaughtered cattle to the soil, thus enriching it with those 
elements which enter into the growing of cattle, is a matter 
which the more intelligent agriculturists and cattle breeders 
will properly estimate, and one to which we hope they will 
give due emphasis in the discussion of this question in the 
agricultural journals .—American Railway Times. 
