Identifier: illustratedhisto01gran (find matches)
Title: Illustrated history of the Union Stockyards; sketch-book of familiar faces and places at the yards
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Grand, W. Joseph
Subjects: Union Stock Yard & Transit Company of Chicago Stockyards
Publisher: Chicago, T. Knapp Ptg. & Bdg. Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ng animalsfor food is, after all, little short of cannibalism, al-though the methods are as humane as methods ofslaughter can well be. The rules regulating the killing of cattle are hardand fast and strictly enforced. First of all, the cattlemust be fed and watered before being weighed. With-out the preliminary step of weighing they cannot besold. The animals must not be killed until twenty-fourhours after leaving the ranch, should they reach thestockyards within that period; and should there begood reasons for delay, they may be held for severaldays, or even weeks, before being slaughtered. Following the weighing, the cattle are carefully in-spected by government officials, on the way from thescales to the slaughter pen, the diseased being separat- OF THE UNION STOCKYARDS 49 ed from the healthy cattle. From this point on thecattle are treated as individuals. They are no longera herd, each steer becoming a beef and thereafter go-ing entirely on his merits as steak and roast. The first
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THE KNOCK-OUT—KILLING CATTLE. step in the individualizing process is to drive the steersfor slaughter into the slaughter pen—a narrow, sepa-rate pen, only large enough for two animals at a time.A man stands on a board walk above, and with a welldirected blow with a heavy sledge, stuns him. A dooris raised as the steer falls, causing him to slide out 50 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY upon the floor of the slaughter-house. A chain is nowfastened to his hind legs and he is hoisted from thefloor, his forelegs spread wide apart, and a sharp knifethrust into his throat by a man who does no other partof the work than this. As the knife strikes the throatthe blood wells out in a torrent. This ocean of bloodis washed down into a gutter leading to a tank, fromwhich it is pumped into covered carts and conveyed tothe fertilizer factory. The head of the steer is now removed. He is thenlowered to the floor and laid upon his back, sticks setin the floor propping him up. The legs are now broken,the stomach

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