There is more animal food consumed in England than in any other country
in the world. We do not merely say more, in proportion to the size of
England, and the numbers of its inhabitants—for then we should only
utter what every-body must know—but we mean actually _more_, without any
such proportional considerations. Considering, then, this vast amount of
animal food, in all its manifold bearings, it is impossible not to be
struck with a sense of what vital importance it is to the health and
general well-being of the community that this food should be of a
perfectly wholesome kind. That very great quantities are not only
unwholesome, but of the worst and most injurious kind, we shall now
proceed to show. We will set this question clearly before the eyes of
the reader, by tracing the brief and eventful history of an ox, from his
journey to Smithfield, till he rolls his large eye upward for the last
time beneath the unskilful blows of his slaughterer.
A good-natured, healthy, honest-faced ox, is driven out of his meadow at
break of day, and finds a number of other oxen collected together in the
high road, amidst the shouting and whistling of drovers, the lowing of
many deep voices, and the sound of many cudgels. As soon as the expected
numbers have all arrived from the different stalls and fields, the
journey of twenty miles to the railway commences. Some are
refractory—the thrusting and digging of the goad instantly produces an
uproar, and even our good-natured ox cannot help contributing his share
of lowing and bellowing, in consequence of one of these poignant digs
received at random while he was endeavouring to understand what was
required of him. From this moment there is no peace or rest in his life.
The noise and contest is nearly over after a few miles, though renewed
now and then at a cross-road, when the creatures do not know which way
they are to go, and some very naturally go one way, and some the other.
The contest is also renewed whenever they pass a pond, or brook, as the
weather is sultry; and the roads are so dusty, besides the steam from
the breath and bodies of the animals, that their journey seems to be
through a dense, continuous, stifling cloud. It is noon; and the sun is
glaring fiercely down upon the drove. They have as yet proceeded only
twelve miles of their journey, but the sleek and healthy skin of our
honest-faced ox has already undergone a considerable change—and as for
his countenance, it is waxing wroth. His eye has become blood-shot since
they passed the last village ale-house, where he made an attempt, in
passing, just to draw his feverish tongue along the water of the
horse-trough, but was suddenly prevented by a violent blow of the hard
nob-end of a drover’s stick across the tip of his nose. Besides this,
the wound he has received from the goad, has laid bare the skin on his
back, and the sun is beginning to act upon this, as well as the flies.
By the time the twenty miles are accomplished, he is in no mood at all
for the close jam in which he is packed with a number of others in one
of the railway cattle-waggons. He bellows aloud his pain and
indignation; in which sonorous eloquence he is joined by a bullock at
his side, who has lost half one horn by a violent blow from a drover’s
stick, because he had stopped to drink from a ditch at the road-side,
and persisted in getting a taste. Our ox makes the acquaintance of this
suffering individual, and they recount their wrongs to each other; but
the idea of escape does not occur to them; they rather resign themselves
to endure their destiny with stolidity, if possible. Hunger, however,
and worse than this, thirst, causes sensations which are quite beyond
all patient endurance; and again they uplift their great voices in anger
and distress.
Our rather slow-minded ox has now arrived at the opinion that some
mischief is deliberately intended him, and feels convinced that
something more is needed in this world than passive submission. But what
to do, he knows not. His courage is high—only he does not comprehend his
position. Man, and his doings, are a dreadful puzzle to him. His
one-horned friend fully coincides in all this. Meantime, they are
foaming with heat, and thirst, and fever.
After a day’s torture in this way, the animals are got out of the
waggon, by a thrashing process which brings them pell-mell over each
other, many landing on their knees, some head foremost, and one or two
falling prostrate beneath the hoofs of the rest. The journey to London
then commences, the two friends having been separated in the recent
confusion.
With the dreadful scenes, among the live cattle, which regularly take
place in Smithfield market, our readers have already been made
acquainted; it will now be our duty to display before them several
equally revolting, and, though in a different way, still more alarming,
scenes and doings which occur in this neighbourhood, and in other
markets and their vicinities.
Look at this ox, with dripping flanks, half-covered with mud; a horrid
wound across his nose; the flesh laid bare in a rent on his back, and
festering from exposure to the sun and the flies; his eye-balls rolling
fiercely about, and clots of foam dropping from his mouth! Would any one
believe that three days ago he was a good-natured, healthy, honest-faced
ox? He is waiting to be sold. But who will give a decent price for a
poor beast in this unsound condition? He is waiting with a cord round
his neck, by which he is fastened to a rail, and in his anguish he has
drawn it so tight that he is half-strangled; but he does not care now.
He can endure no more, he thinks, because he is becoming insensible.
Presently, among several others brought to the same rail, he recognises
his friend with the broken horn. They get side by side, and gasp deeply
their mutual torments. There are no more loud lowings and bellowings;
they utter nothing but gasps and groans. Besides the fractured horn,
this bullock has since received a thrust from a goad in his right eye,
by which the sight is not only destroyed, but an effect produced which
makes it requisite to sell him at any price he will bring. This being
agreed upon, he is led away to a slaughter-house near at hand. Our poor
ox makes a strong effort to accompany his friend, and with his eye-balls
almost starting from his head, tugs at the cord that holds him by the
throat, until it breaks. He then hastens after the other, but is quickly
intercepted by a couple of drovers, who assail him with such fury, that
he turns about, and runs out of the market.
He is in too wretched and worn-out a condition to run fast, so he merely
staggers onward amidst the blows, till suddenly a water-cart happens to
pass. The sight of the shining drops of water seems to give the poor
beast a momentary energy. He runs staggering at it head foremost—his
eyes half-shut,—falls with his head against the after-part of the wheel
as the cart passes on,—and there lies lolling out his tongue upon the
moistened stones. He makes no effort to rise. The drovers form a circle
round him, and rain blows all over him; but the ox still lies with his
tongue out upon the cool wet stones. They then wrench his tail round
till they break it, and practise other cruelties upon him; but all in
vain. There he lies.
While the drovers are pausing to wipe their sanguinary and demoniac
foreheads, and recover their breath, the ox slowly, and as if in a sort
of delirium, raises himself on his legs, and stands looking at the
drovers with forlorn vacancy. At this juncture the Market Inspector
joins the crowd, and after a brief glance at the various sores and
injuries, condemns the ox as diseased—therefore unfit for sale. He is
accordingly led off, limping and stumbling to the horse-slaughterer’s in
Sharp’s Alley, duly attended by the Inspector, to see that his order of
condemnation be carried into effect. They are followed at a little
distance by two fellows, whose filthy habiliments show that they have
slept amidst horrors, who keep the diseased ox in view with a sort of
stealthy, wolfish “eye to business.”
The dying ox, with the drover, and the Inspector, having slowly made
their way through the usual market difficulties, and (to those who are
not used to it) the equally revolting horrors of the outskirts, finally
get into Sharp’s Alley, and enter the terrific den of the licensed
horse-slaughter-house.
It is a large knacker’s yard, furnished with all the usual apparatus for
slaughtering diseased or worn-out horses, and plentifully bestrewn with
the reeking members and frightful refuse of the morning’s work. But even
before the eye,—usually the first and quickest organ in action,—has time
to glance round, the sense of smell is not only assailed, but taken by
storm, with a most horrible, warm, moist, effluvium, so offensive, and
at the same time so peculiar and potent, that it requires no small
resolution in any one, not accustomed to it, to remain a minute within
its precincts. Three of the corners are completely filled up with a heap
of dead horses lying upon their backs, with their hoofs sticking bolt
upright; while two other angles in the yard are filled with a mass of
bodies and fragments, whose projecting legs and other members serve as
stretchers for raw skins,—flayed from their companions, or from
themselves, lying all discoloured, yet in all colours, beneath. By this
means the skins are stretched out to dry. A few live animals are in the
yard. There is one horse—waiting for his turn—as the ox-party come in;
his knees are bent, his head is bowed towards the slushy ground, his
dripping mane falling over his face, and almost reaching with its lank
end to the dark muddled gore in which his fore hoofs are planted. A
strange, ghastly, rattling sound, apparently from the adjoining
premises, is kept up without intermission; a sort of inconceivably rapid
devil’s-tattoo, by way of accompaniment to the hideous scene.
Two dead horses are being skinned; but all the other animals—of the
four-footed class we mean—are bullocks, in different stages of disease,
and they are seven in number. These latter have not been condemned by
the Inspector, but have been brought here to undergo a last effort for
the purpose of being made saleable—washed and scrubbed, so as to have
the chance of finding a purchaser by torchlight at some very low price;
and failing in this, to be killed before they die, or cut up as soon
after they die as possible. They were all distinguished by slang terms
according to the nature and stage of their diseases. The two best of
these bad bullocks are designated as “choppers;” the three next, whose
hides are torn in several places, are called “rough-uns;” while those
who are in a drooping and reeking condition, with literally a
death-sweat all over them, are playfully called “wet-uns.” To this
latter class belongs our poor ox, who is now brought in, and formally
introduced by the Inspector, as diseased, and _condemned_. The others he
does not see—or, at least, does not notice—his business being with the
ox, who was the last comer. Having thus performed his duty, the
Inspector retires!
But what _is_ this ceaseless rattling tattoo that is kept up in the
adjoining premises? The walls vibrate with it! Machinery of some kind?
Yes—it is a chopping machine; and here you behold the “choppers,” both
horses and diseased bullocks, who will shortly be in a fit state for
promotion, and will then be taken piece-meal next door. Ay, it is so, in
sober and dreadful seriousness. Here, in this Sharp’s Alley, you behold
the largest horse-slaughter-house in the city; and here, next door, you
will find the largest sausage manufactory in London. The two
establishments thus conveniently situated, belong to near
relations—brothers, we believe, or brothers-in-law.
Now, while the best of the diseased bullocks or “choppers” are taken to
the sausage machine, to be advantageously mixed with the choppings of
horse-flesh (to which latter ingredient the angry redness of so many
“cured” sausages, _saveloys_, and all the class of _polonies_ is
attributable), who shall venture to deny that, in the callousness of old
habits, and the boldness derived from utter impunity and profitable
success, a very considerable addition is often made to the stock of the
“choppers,” from many of the “rough-uns,” and from some of the more
sound parts of the miserable “wet-uns?” Verily this thing may be—“’tis
apt, and of great credit,” to the City of London.
But a few words must be said of the “closing scene” of our poor
condemned ox. We would, most willingly, have passed this over, leaving
it to the imagination of the reader; but as no imagination would be at
all likely to approach the fact, we hope we shall be rendering a service
to common humanity in doing some violence to our own, and the readers’
feelings, by exposing such scenes to the gaze of day.
Owing to some press of business, the ox was driven to a neighbouring
slaughter-house in the Alley. He was led to the fatal spot, sufficiently
indicated, even amidst all the rest of the sanguinary floor, by its
frightful condition. They placed him in the usual way; the slaughterman
approached with his pole-axe, and swinging it round in a half-jocose and
reckless manner, to hide his want of practice and skill, he struck the
ox a blow on one side of his head, which only made him sink with a groan
on his knees, and sway over on one side. In this attitude he lay
groaning, while a torrent of blood gushed out of his mouth. He could not
be made to rise again to receive the stroke of death or further torment.
They kicked him with the utmost violence in the ribs and on the cheek
with their iron-nailed shoes, but to no purpose. They then jumped upon
him; he only continued to groan. They wrenched his already-broken tail
till they broke it again, higher up, in two places. He strove to rise,
but sank down as before. Finally they had recourse to the following
torture: they closed his nostrils with wet cloths, held tightly up by
both hands, so that no breath could escape, and they then poured a
bucketful of dirty slaughter-house water into his mouth and down his
throat, till with the madness of suffocation the wretched animal was
roused to a momentary struggle for life, and with a violent fling of the
head, which scattered all his torturers, and all their apparatus of wet
rags and buckets, he rose frantically upon his legs. The same
slaughterman now advanced once more with his pole-axe, and dealt a blow,
but again missed his mark, striking only the side of the head. A third
blow was more deliberately levelled at him, and this the ox, by an
instinct of nature, evaded by a side movement as the axe descended. The
slaughterman, enraged beyond measure, and yet more so by the jeers of
his companions, now repeated his blows in quick succession, not one of
which was effective, but only produced a great rising tumour. The
elasticity of this tumour which defeated a death-blow, added to the
exhaustion of the slaughterman’s strength, caused this scene of
barbarous butchery to be protracted to the utmost, and the groaning and
writhing ox did not fall prostrate till he had received as many as
fifteen blows. What followed cannot be written.
It is proper to add that scenes like these, resulting from want of skill
in the slaughterman, are by no means so common in Smithfield, as in some
other markets—Whitechapel more especially. But they occur occasionally
in an equal or less degree, in every market of the metropolis.
The two haggard, wolf-eyed fellows who had prowled after the ox, and his
Inspector, now step forward and purchase the bruised and diseased corpse
of the slaughtered (murdered) animal, and carry it away to be sold to
the poor, in small lots by gas-light, on Saturday nights, or in the form
of soup; and to the rich, in the disguise of a well-seasoned English
German-sausage, or other delicious preserved meat! So much for the
Inspector, and the amount of duty he so ably performed!
We make the following extract from a pamphlet recently published,
entitled, “An Enquiry into the present state of the Smithfield Cattle
Market, and the Dead Meat Markets of the Metropolis.”
“The _wet-uns_ are very far gone in disease, and are so bad that those
who have to touch them, carefully cover their hands to avoid immediate
contact with such foul substances, naturally fearing the communication
of poison. A servant of a respectable master butcher, about a
twelvemonth ago, slightly scratched his finger with a bone of one of
these diseased animals; the consequence was that he was obliged to go
to the hospital, where he was for upwards of six weeks, and the
surgeons all agreed that it was occasioned by the poison from the
diseased bone. It is also a fact, that if the hands at any time come
in contact with this meat, they are frequently so affected by the
strong smell of the medicine which had been given to the animal when
alive, that it is impossible for a considerable time to get rid of it;
and yet, it will scarcely be believed, none of these poisonous
substances are thrown away—all goes in some shape or form into the
craving stomachs of the hungry poor, or is served up as a dainty for
the higher classes. Even cows which die in calving, and still-born
calves, are all brought to market and sold. Let these facts be
gainsayed; we defy contradiction.”
We must by no means overlook the adventures and sufferings of sheep; nor
the unwholesome condition to which great numbers of them are reduced
before they are sold as human food.
A sheep is scudding and bouncing over a common, in the morning, with the
dew glistening on her fleece. She is full of enjoyment, and knows no
care in life. In the evening of the same day, she is slowly moving along
a muddy lane, among a large flock; fatigued, her wool matted with dust
and slush, her mouth parched with thirst, and one ear torn to a red rag
by the dog. He was sent to do it by the shepherd, because she had lagged
a little behind, to gaze through a gap in the hedge at a duck-pond in
the field. She has been in a constant state of fright, confusion, and
apprehension, ever since. At every shout of the shepherd’s voice, or
that of his boy, and at every bark of the dog, or sound of the rapid
pattering of his feet as he rushes by, she has expected to be again
seized, and perhaps torn to pieces. As for the passage of the dog over
her back, in one of his rushes along the backs of the flock, as they
huddle densely together near some crooked corner or cross-way—in utter
confusion as to what they are wanted to do—what they themselves want to
do—what is best to do—or what in the world is about to be done—no word
of man, or bleat of sheep, can convey any adequate impression of the
fright it causes her. On one of these occasions, when going through a
narrow turnpike, the dog is sent over their backs to worry the leaders
who are going the wrong way, and in her spring forward to escape the
touch of his devilish foot, she lacerated her side against a nail in the
gatepost, making a long wound.
The sudden pain of this causes her to leap out of the rank, up a bank;
and seeing a green field beneath, the instinct of nature makes her leap
down, and scour away. In a moment, the dog—the fury—is after her. She
puts forth all her strength, all her speed—the wind is filled with the
horrors of his voice—of the redoubling sound of his feet—he gains upon
her—she springs aside—leaps up banks—over hurdles—through hedges—but he
is close upon her;—without knowing it, she has made a circle, and is
again nearing the flock, which she reaches just as he springs upon her
shoulders and tears her again on the head, and his teeth lacerate anew
her coagulated ear. She eventually arrives at the railway station, and
is crushed into one of the market waggons; and in this state of
exhaustion, fever, and burning thirst, remains for several hours, until
she arrives in the suburbs of Smithfield. What she suffers in this place
has been already narrated, till finally she is sold, and driven off to
be slaughtered. The den where this last horror is perpetrated (for in
what other terms can we designate all these unnecessary brutalities?) is
usually a dark and loathsome cellar. A slanting board is sometimes
placed, down which the sheep are forced. But very often there is no such
means of descent, and our poor jaded, footsore, wounded sheep—all foul
and fevered, and no longer fit food for man—is seized in the half-naked
blood-boltered arms of a fellow in a greasy red nightcap, and flung down
the cellar, both her fore-legs being broken by the fall. She is
instantly clutched by the ruffians below—dragged to a broad and dripping
bench—flung upon it, on her back—and then the pallid face and patient
eye looks upward!—and is understood.
And shall not we also—the denizens of a Christian land—understand it?
Shall we not say—“Yes, poor victim of man’s necessities of food, we know
that your death is one of the means whereby we continue to exist—one of
the means whereby our generations roll onward in their course to some
higher states of knowledge and civilisation—one of the means whereby we
gain time to fill, to expand, and to refine the soul, and thus to make
it more fitting for its future abode. But, knowing this, we yet must
recognise in you, a fellow-creature of the earth, dwelling in our sight,
and often close at our side, and trusting us—a creature ever harmless,
and ever useful to us, both for food and clothing; nor do we deserve the
good with which you supply us, nor even the proud name of Man, if we do
not, at the same time, recognise your rightful claim to our humane
considerations.”
In the course of last year, there were sold in Smithfield Market, the
enormous number of two hundred and thirty-six thousand cattle; and one
million, four hundred and seventeen thousand sheep. A practical
authority has curiously calculated the number of serious and extensive
bruises, caused by sheer brutality, rather than any accidents, in the
course of a year. He finds that the amount could not be less than five
hundred and twelve thousand. These are only the body-bruises, and do not
include any of the various cruelties of blows and cuts on the nose,
hocks, horns, tails, ears, legs, &c. Of course, this fevered and bruised
flesh rapidly decomposes, and is no longer fit for human food. The flesh
of many an animal out of Smithfield, killed on Monday, has become
diseased meat by Tuesday evening—a fact too well known. The loss on
bruised meat in the year has been calculated, by a practical man, at
three shillings a head on every bullock, and sixpence on every sheep,
making a total loss of Sixty-Three Thousand Pounds per annum. This loss,
it is to be understood, is independent of the quantity of bruised and
diseased meat, which _ought_ to be lost, but is sold at various markets,
as human food. It is also independent of the numbers of diseased calves
and pigs brought to market every week, and sold. Very much of this
diseased meat is sold publicly—in Newgate Market, and Tyler’s Market
more especially—and at any rate there is a special and regular trade
carried on in it. One soup establishment, for the working classes, is
said to carry on a business amounting to between four hundred and five
hundred pounds weekly, in diseased meat. It is also used by sausage,
polony, and saveloy makers; for meat pies, and a-la-mode beef shops; and
is very extensively by many of the concocters of preserved meats for
home and foreign consumption. It is said that one of the Arctic
Expeditions failed, chiefly, in consequence of the preserved meats
failing them. They would not keep. Is it any wonder that they would not
keep? What they were made of—wholly, or in part—has been sufficiently
shown.
“In Newgate Market,” says the writer previously quoted, “the most
disgraceful trade is carried on in diseased meat; as a proof of which,
we assert that one person has been known to purchase from one hundred
and twenty, to one hundred and thirty diseased carcases of beasts
weekly; and when it is known that there are from twenty to thirty
persons, at the least, engaged in this nefarious practice in this
market alone, some idea may be formed of its extent.
“The numbers of diseased sheep from _variola ovina_, of small-pox,
sent to this market, are alarmingly on the increase, and it is much to
be feared that this complaint is naturalised among our English flocks.
It is very much propagated in the metropolis. It is an acknowledged
fact that upwards of one hundred sheep in this state were weekly, and
for a considerable period, consigned for sale from one owner, who had
purchased largely from abroad, and this took place at the early part
of the present year (1848), and was one of the causes of the inquiry
in Parliament, and the subsequent act.
“An Inspector is appointed to this market with full powers, acting
under a deputation from the Lord Mayor; but the duties of the office
must be of a very difficult nature, and probably _interfere materially
with the other avocations_ of the Inspector, as we find but little
evidence of his activity. Compare our statement above with the return
laid before the Board of Trade, and it will appear that of fifty
diseased carcases not one on an average is seized.
“Close adjoining to Newgate Market, is Tyler’s Market, it is only
separated by Warwick Lane. This market is said to be private property,
and that no Inspector has ever been appointed. Every description of
diseased meat is sold here in the most undisguised manner: it is
_celebrated_ for _diseased pork_. It has been stated by a practical
man, one well acquainted with the facts, and fully capable of forming
a correct opinion, that nearly one half of the pigs sold in this
market during the pork season of 1847, ending March, 1848, was
diseased and unfit for human food; and of all other diseased animals,
what has been said of Newgate applies with far greater force to this
market. In Leadenhall Market diseased meat is also sold, though not to
the same extent. Whitechapel Market is situate to the south of the
main or high street bearing the above name. It is rather difficult to
describe the trade carried on here. The situation of the shops—_long,
dark, and narrow_, with the _slaughterhouses behind_—is well adapted
for carrying on the disgraceful practices in either a wholesale or
retail manner to a very great extent. Some of the very worst
description of diseased animals brought to Smithfield alive are here
slaughtered, and large quantities of meat from the country, totally
unfit for food, arrive in every stage of disease, and are sold by the
pound and the stone, to a fearful extent. The following are the names
of the other meat markets, to all of which some diseased animals and
meat find their way,—and to _none_ of them is any Inspector
appointed:—
“Clare Market, retail; Newport, wholesale and retail: St. George’s,
retail; Oxford, retail; Portman, retail; Brook’s, retail; Sheppard’s,
retail; Boro’, retail; Carnaby, retail; Spitalfields, retail;
Finsbury, retail. At all of these markets the meat is exposed for sale
on Saturday evenings, under the glare of projecting gas burners; and
the poor, who receive their wages on that day, and are the principal
customers, are deceived by its appearance in this light; their object
is of course to obtain the cheapest and the most economical joints;
the meat without fat, which is generally most diseased, is selected by
them, being considered the most profitable, though the fact is that
this species of meat has been proved to be the cause of cancerous
diseases, and diseases of the chest and lungs.”
The above was attested by one of the witnesses before the Committee of
1828. To think of these abominations having gone on regularly ever
since! Why, it looks as though our legislators had received a
communication from one of the Inspectors, assuring honourable gentlemen
that “it was all nonsense, all this talk about diseased meat! If the
meat was now and then a little queer—though _he_ had never seen such a
thing—none of the poor were any the worse for eating it!” But we will
answer for one thing;—the Inspector never breathed a word about the
_preserved meats_ which so frequently present themselves with a modest
air in purple and white china as delicacies for rich men’s tables!
The _foreign stock_, and the circumstances under which they arrive, must
not be passed over. They are confined during four or five, or even six
days, in the dark and stifling hold of the vessel, and it frequently
occurs that in all this time there is scarcely any food given them (we
are assured, on good authority, that there is often _none_) nor one drop
of water. The condition in which they arrive may be conjectured. Besides
the extensive preparations for the Monday’s market, which are made by
the drovers and salesmen of the home stock during Sunday, the
desecration of the “day of rest” is immensely increased by the supply of
foreign stock, which arrives at the railway at the same time. Foreign
vessels, (we are quoting from evidence before a Committee) bringing
cattle, endeavour to arrive here on Sunday as early as possible, in
order that the salesman may see the stock before the animals are brought
into the market. There is also a very large supply of calves from
Holland, which are all carted from Blackwall; and the confusion and
uproar there, and at Brewer’s Quay on a Sunday morning, passes all
belief. Great quantities of cattle are also sent on Sunday in order to
avoid the expense of _lairage_, or standing-room. About two thousand men
and boys are employed in this real Sunday desecration. Need we say, it
is of the most shocking and cruel nature? _Here_ is something really
worthy of the storm that is so much wasted on minor matters in this
much-vexed question.