"BUTCHERY AND THE LAW"
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIK—May I, in writing to congratulate and heartily thank you for your article in last week's Spectator, crave leave to supple- ment it after reading the report of the debate on Colonel Moore's Humane Slaughter Bill ?
The ostensible grounds of opposition are a possible increase in the time required to kill a definite number of pigs, and the entirely unsubstantiated assertion that pigs humanely stunned before sticking are more .apt to show what is termed " blood-
splash," i.e., a congestion of the- smaller blood-vessels which, if present, blemishes the appearance of the meat and may
interfere with perfect curing. -
It is therefore essential that everybody should be made aware : (1) of the existence of this capillary congestion long before the humane killer was heard of ; (2) that there-is a mass of testimony to the fact that stunning before sticking does not influence its occurrence; -(8) that all evidence tends to show that excitement, terror, rough handling or overdriving are the true predisposing causes, and that when these are avoided no blood-splash occurs, but if these have immediately preceded the killing, then, whatever be the actual method Of death, blood-splash may appear.
I should 'wish to add that this question of blood-splash, being due to ante-mortem excitation, has a direct bearing on the point which -Dr. E. Graham Little, M.P., raised in, a letter to the Morning Post—riz.,the "probability, that perni- eious toxic effects, produced by fear and pain, and especially tor fear, may result in ultimate damage to meat derived from animals slaughtered painfully."- Thus, then, apart from the unshakable moral tasis for the H. S. Bill, no citizen should fail to make it clear to his parliamentary representation that this is, as you truly say, another case of " The Bill, the Whole Bill and nothing but the Bill" !—I am, Sir, &c., Acton Burnell, Salop, December 12/h. Enrra WARD.
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