THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD
(Papers in the _Daily Mail_, 1912.)[2]
The thing is horrible, but it is necessary. Why then drag it out into
the light? Why make our thoughts miserable with contemplation of horrors
which must exist?
If it were true that the present methods of slaughtering animals for
food in this country were necessary, if all the suffering they involve
was inevitable, I should be the first to say: “Let us shut our eyes!”
For, needless suffering—even to ourselves—is stupid. It is just
because this particular suffering is avoidable, and easily avoidable,
that one feels we must face the matter if we want to call ourselves a
decent people.
I am a meat-eater—we are nearly all meat-eaters. Well! We cannot sit
down at present to a single meal without complicity in methods that
produce a large amount of preventable suffering to creatures for whom
the least sensitive among us has at heart a certain friendly feeling.
For, to those who say that they do not care for animals, or that
animals, even domestic ones, have no rights except such as for our own
advantage we accord them, let me at once reply: I do not agree, but for
the sake of argument, granted; and then conceive, if you can, a world
without cattle, sheep, and pigs, and tell me honestly whether you do not
miss something friendly. No! the fact is, we, who are the descendants of
countless generations to whom these animals have been literally the
breath of life, cannot—even now that we have become such highly
civilized townsmen—disclaim all sensibility in their regard.
Consider the magnitude of this matter. The calculations of an expert
give the following approximate numbers of animals annually killed for
food in England and Wales: 1,850,000 beasts, 8,500,000 sheep, and
3,200,000 pigs. These figures are hard to come at, and may be a million
or so out, one way or the other, but even if they be, is there any
feature of the national life which can touch this for possibilities of
preventable physical suffering? And is there any department so neglected
by public opinion and the law?
Save the eating of bread, have we any practice in our lives so
consistent as that of eating meat, or any from which we, perhaps
wrongly, consider that we derive more benefit, or any about whose
conditions, sanitary or humane, we are so careless?
If a donkey is beaten to death, a dog stoned, or a cat killed with a
riding-whip, the chances are that a prosecution will ensue or a question
be asked in Parliament; for public opinion and the law lay it down that
the infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals is an offence
punishable by fine or imprisonment. But if in slaughter-houses some
8,000,000 sheep are killed yearly, _without first being stunned_, by a
method which, even in the hands of an expert, produces some seconds of
acute suffering (Report of the Admiralty Committee on Humane
Slaughtering of Animals, 1904); if thousands of cattle require two or
more blows of that primitive instrument, the pole-axe (if even only one
in a hundred cattle requires a second blow it means 18,000 in a year);
if pigs are driven in gangs into a small space and there killed, one by
one, with the others squealing in terror round their dead bodies; if all
this preventable suffering is inflicted daily in our slaughterhouses,
what does public opinion know of it, and what does the law care?
There was a time in this country when men beat their donkeys, set cocks
fighting, baited bears and badgers, tied tin pots to dogs’ tails, with
the lightest of light hearts and no consciousness at all that they were
outside the pale of decency in doing so. We, their descendants, now look
on the unnecessary suffering involved in such doings with aversion; but
we still allow our sheep and pigs to be killed without stunning, our
pigs to be driven in gangs into the slaughtering chamber, and the
uncertain pole-axe to be used for cattle—all without a qualm.
Why should this enormous field, wherein does occur such an amount of
easily preventable suffering, be left so unpatrolled by the law, which
has interested itself in warding off all needless suffering from cats
and dogs and horses? Well! The law stands idle partly because the
animals we kill for food are not so near and dear to us as those others.
We should never stand the horses and dogs and cats we make such pets of
being killed when their time comes in the manner in which we kill our
sheep and pigs. And partly the law stands idle because in the case of
horses and dogs and cats there is no large leagued interest, such as
that of the meat trades, unconvinced of the need for improvement.
I am told that the meat trades constitute the strongest body in the
kingdom. And well they may, considering the vast proportions of their
business. The meat trades are controlled by men like ourselves—as
humane, and undesirous of inflicting unnecessary suffering. Surely they
will reconsider their convictions and accept such simple, elementary
safeguards against unnecessary suffering as were outlined by the
Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, of 1904. There is nothing
really prejudicial to their interest in these suggestions. Nothing
extravagant, or experimental. The case has been proved up to the hilt.
What is the good of appointing a governmental committee of first-rate
men[3] to examine into facts if their Report is to be paid about as much
attention to as one would pay to the suggestions of seven lunatics? Why
set going a laborious inquiry, for negligible or puny results? It can no
longer be pretended that humane-killers are not effective, in the face
of so much evidence from abroad; in the face of numerous testimonials
from butchers in this country; in the face of the fact that Mr.
Christopher Cash (for whose consistent advocacy of humane slaughtering
the thanks of us all are due) in the year 1910 had 4,000 animals, the
property of thirty butchers, killed by “humane” methods, and though he
was in every case willing to pay full compensation for any injury he
might do to a carcase, had not one single claim made on him. (From a
pamphlet entitled “The Humane Slaughtering of Animals for Food,” by
Christopher Cash. Issued by the R.S.P.C.A.).
Butchers and slaughtermen perform a necessary task from which most of us
would shrink, and it is both unbecoming and nonsensical to suggest
intentional cruelty on their part. _I do not for a moment._ But I do say
that it is the business of the law so to control the methods of
slaughter as to obviate to the utmost all needless suffering, however
unintentionally it may be inflicted.
In the following brief summary of our want of system I am not dealing at
all with the Jewish method of killing, for not being a Jew, I cannot
pretend to be qualified to discuss a custom which appears to have been
necessary hitherto to the peace of the Jewish mind. I only urge a people
in some respects more humane than ourselves to search their consciences,
and see if they can still endure this method. Neither am I speaking as
to Scotland, which is ahead of us, having provided by the Burgh Police
Act, of 1892, that where there are public there shall be no private
slaughter-houses; and where—at all events in Edinburgh—they have
abattoirs that compare, I am told, with the best on the Continent.
The following is a rough outline of what at present seems good to a
nation which prides itself on being at once the most practical and the
most humane in the whole world:—
A mixed system of private and public slaughter-houses—thousands
of private slaughter-houses (some of them highly insanitary)
alongside of a few municipally controlled abattoirs.
No regulation that where there are public abattoirs there shall
be no private ones; _hence_ great difficulty in making these
public slaughterhouses pay their way.
Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite of all the good
intentions of local authorities and medical officers, admitted
to be very inefficient in so far as condition of meat and method
of slaughter are concerned.
Supervision of public slaughter-houses much hampered by the
present widespread custom of allowing butchers to send in their
beasts with their own slaughtermen.
No general statutory regulations as to method of slaughter.
Model by-laws have been drawn up by the Local Government Board
and recommended to local authorities—but they are not
compulsory and have been as yet but sparsely adopted.
Slaughtermen not licensed; nor—except in slaughterhouses
directly controlled by a Government Department (such as the
Admiralty)—required by law to be proficient before they
commence slaughtering.