THE CATTLE-ROAD TO RUIN.

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 326passing, 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 327with 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 328for 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 329brutalities?) 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 330in 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.