Country Life
IN ANIMALS' DEFENCE.
" It's beautiful—sitting up there in the sun." So said the guide who showed me over a new building at Letchworth. He might have been recommending a summer-house or winter garden. He was speaking of the " through-way " that connects the several parts of the huge abattoir—it covers two acres—that is being built by the Animals' Defence Associa- tion. A slaughter-house has probably never before been associated with such a sentiment ! The most hateful of all the spectacles I ever saw was the slaughter-house at the great Chicago abattoir. The beasts had premonition of their fate ; and it seemed to me scarcely possible that a man's senses could survive against the daily bombardment by those odious sights and sounds and smells, though everything was done to minimize pain. Such grimness is as unnecessary as the mistakes—against morals and health—that occur in private slaughter-houses. This new abattoir, much the best in the world, will convince every reformer that the killing of animals for food can be done without the infliction of pain and in a manner that is cleanly and hygienic. The animal dies instantly by the agency of a small bullet. We may hope that the end of the private slaughter-house is in sight. This is the chief but not the only consideration. The methodic, scientific organiza- tion of the work means that the by-products—of which the
value even yet is not understood—will subserve the genera wealth. The head of the greatest meat-firm in the world said to me in Chicago : " We do not mind selling meat at a loss. It is in the by-products that the fortune lies " ; and his bank balance suggested that he knew what he was saying. As things are in Britain most of these are wasted ; and the waste means quite a serious subtraction from the profits of the producer as well as of the butcher. It is satis- factory to know that some of the towns are to follow at once the lead given at Letchworth.
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