LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE HUMANE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Su,—In reference to the letter in the Spectator of July 18th on "The Slaughter of Animals for Food," signed Charles H. L. Emanuel, I would like to point out the following
(1) With regard to killing by pole-axe and knife. In the ordinary routine of the slaughterhouses of Great Britain, the large animals are stunned by the pole-axe which, depending on man's individual skill, is uncertain in its effect. I have seen even an expert have to strike twice with a pole-axe before the bullock fell. When the pole-axe is in the hands of less-experienced operators many blows may be the result. We of the Animal Defence Society hold tanned foreheads of cattle showing six, seven, and even twelve blows. The smaller animals are killed by knife alone, fully conscious ; the suffering thus inflicted is only too often increased by the knife being blunt and unskilfully wielded.
(2) There is a complete fallacy and misunderstanding in the minds of those who uphold Jewish methods of slaughter. For the result of the cut made by the Jewish method does not, as stated by Sir William Bayliss, "produce immediate insensibility." I have personally timed with a stop-watch that for as long as seven minutes evidence of consciousness remained after a bullock's throat had been cut. The suffering involved was self-evident to all who saw it with sympathy in their hearts for the creature. The scientific explanation of why sensibility continues after the throat and carotid arteries are severed are fully dealt with in the article by Professor Mudge, A.R.C.Sc. (Load.), which appeared in the British Guardian, November-December, 1924. Professor Mudge has carefully dissected a calf head and also that of a bullock and has thereby established the fact that blood in sufficient quantities to "maintain the nutrition of the brain and to preserve consciousness" reaches the brain by the vertebral arteries, which are untouched by the cut and so continue to pass,blood to the brain.
But in fairness I would like to add that though the method of Jewish slaughter has filled me with horror, yet I emphatically state that it is not worse than the brutal and barbarically cruel method of killing pigs in those pig factories which do not yet use the mechanical humane killer. Such a method I witnessed at Birmingham at the demonstration specially arranged by the National Federation of Meat Traders to show the excellency of this method. There was a replica of the much-lauded model plant for killing pigs, in the shape of an elevator carrying an endless revolving chain, on to which pigs were hoisted, head downwards, by means of a noose fastened round one hind leg, which was then attached to a ring on the chain. From the revolving chain the pigs passed Ion to a bar, where the slaughtermen , waited with knives, sticking each pig as it came their way. The exhibition was wholly objectionable from the humane point of view. The noise of the machine, the screams of their fellows suffering the pain of being hoisted by one leg terrified those, as yet 'untouched, which tried to escape from the pen where they were confined adjoining the elevator. Occasionally one hoisted pig got into the way of another, and a man had to disengage the two bodies, thus adding further strain to the limbs from which the bodies were suspended. The shrieks and groans of the hoisted and stuck animals were pitiful.
Therefore, I urge that it behoves us first to cleanse our own house of its inhumane stains.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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