OLD ENGLISH HORSES AT ANTWERP.
[To roe Euless or raa
• SIE,—This is the third year that I have watched, during . weeks Or months,: the traffic in old English horses at _Antwerp. Last Monday (December 29th), accompanied by .M.Ruhl,-President of the Brus,sela (Anderlecht) S.P.A., I met
• theta at the docks, The weather had been normaL The Leith , boat, on which the greater number of deaths occur, did not . arrive; nor did the boat from 'Goole. Only the Hull and :Newcastle boats arrived; bringing something under three' hundred horses, and they were in a better condition generally .than I have ever seen them before, except that there were, as 'wand, several blind pit ponies. The condition of the traffic
• here last Mond.ay.waa as good as it can be while old horses are exPorted • alive. Permit me to describe what happens under the best conditions we can command. Snow was on the • groupd and the .weather was bitterly cold. Se. vend of the .horses were freshly .clipped ; they stood for an hour or more in the dock. road, till all were in line and examined by the. -veterineryinspeetor. Four were found onfit to walk tlp four' and a half 'miles to the quarantine stables and were conveyed in floats. Several of those that walked were more or less lame. One had hair and. skin rubbed off the root of the tail. At the quarantine stables we found that one of the horses in a float had fallen. It was given food and (at the request of
• M. Ruhl) some water. It ate and drank ravenously and after its meal, was -able to .stand again. . Thanks to M. Van Peborgh, a Belgian Senator, all the horses are now fed at the quarantine stables. After the brass medals which mark them for death were clamped, in their ears, the horses in the floats were taken directly to the chief Antwerp slaughterhouse for immediate slaughter. Their fate is ties happiest. possible, for any of our exported aid horses. We followed them. One horse was already tied in the yard, and our four English horses were tied near here.. At the suggestion of .K Rohl the hay in the float was placed on the ground within their reach, and they all ate eagerly. They were some way from the two slaughter-sheds, where two horses were being skinned and out up. Through a momentarily opened door I saw several horses in a dark, filthy stable, with wet manure for straw, The instrument of slaughter is a sort of hammer with a very long handle. The end of the hammer that strikee the animal should be hollow, with a smooth, even rim. The instrument we found hanging on the wall in one of the sheds had the hollow part filled up with solid dirt, and the edge of the rim was worn and jagged. M. Buhl, who passes four days a week in the Brussels slaughterhouse, says that it is impossible to slaughter properly with such an instrument.
A man came from the further slaughter-shed, cut the hair off the mane and tail of the first horse—a good-looking black animal, who had accepted attention from me with evident pleasure—and led him into the shed. A. mask was put over his eyes. The blow was given. Then came the most terrible cry I have ever beard—the cry, half shriek and half groan, that is only wrung from a horse by extreme torment. At the same instant he fell, but threw up his. head and struggled to get up again. A second blow stunned, or killed him. After that sampledf slaughtering' at the chief slaughterhouse we visited the smaller one, also in Antwerp. We had only time to see that it looked small,. dirty, and badly arranged before we were turned out, although a smell girl, about nine years old, stood staring into one of the slaughter-sheds. Such are the conditions of slaughter in one of the chief towns of Belgium. -What are they in the. small towns where the greater number of our old horses are - slaughtered We went Lack to the quarantine stables at dusk and watched some of the horses start in groups. for the interior. Some would reach Brussels, twenty-eight.. miles distant, in the morning. Some would only go five or ten miles Some would go by rail to distant towns. Two. that I saw start were lame. Not a few went to the two. slaughterhouses we had seen. The medals, clamped in the ear, marked them for death, but that death may be delayed for ten days. In the Antwerp slaughterhouse I have seen, horses waiting for slaughter in a filthy stable without straw. or food. I have met others at dawn dead lame, sweating, and bleeding at Brussels. I have met a gang of about forty, all fastened together, at night on the road. Once outside Antwerp no law protects them. They are wholly at the mercy of butchers and of drovers employed by them. Forced marches, filthy stables, days and nights of hunger and thirst, and cruel methods of slaughter are now, and will be, the fate of old horses exported alive from England, even under the best possible conditions.. 'Within the next few days I hope to know more of the fate of horses taken into the interior, and of those, generally. blind pit ponies, sold for vivisection in veterinary colleges. I learnt from the director of the quaran- tine stables that the medals in the ears of vivisected horsea need not be returned. The reason for this exception is that the fate of these horses is certain. The result of that excel,. lion is that no limit is set to the duration of their sufferings. About fifty English horses are sold each year for vivisection at our colleges. All this is part of the traffic in old horses, under the most satisfactory conditions we can ensure, as long as we export them am, Sir, &c., A. H. F. Corn.
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