Page:BehindtheScenesinSlaughterHouses.pdf/17

15 pistol is inserted, charged with a bullet. All that is necessary is to touch the spring, a trigger, and a bullet is at once discharged into the centre of the animal's forehead.

Among humane implements must be classed those which render the killing process more rapid, although their introduction is due to a desire to save time and money, and not to any feelings of humanity. In some American slaughter-houses bullocks are killed by shooting. In others they are killed by stabbing, or severing the cervical vertebræ, by means of a heavy spear dropped from above. The shooting system is, as far as pain to the animal operated upon is concerned, an obvious improvement on the uncertainty of the pole-axe; but it would be interesting to learn whether accidents to workmen are unknown where it is adopted. The stabbing plan is worked by having an elevated platform stretched along the length of the building where bullocks are laired, just above their heads. A man armed with the spear walks along and drops the heavily-weighted blade or rounded edge of the spear on to the neck of each animal in turn. Both systems are in use in the huge cattle-killing establishments in Chicago.

Turning to the smaller animals used by men for food, we, unfortunately, do not find that invention has been greatly at work to lessen their sufferings. The extreme expedition which prevails in the pig-killing establishments in Chicago would he commendable, if care were always taken that the animal was dead before the flaying and cutting-up operations commenced. Such, however, is reported not to be the case, and where speed is the one