Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

“The animals bought in the market do not,” he says, “make a long stay there, but are promptly conducted to the slaughter-houses, which now extend from the other side of the Canal de l’Ourcq, over an area of 211,672 metres, opening on to the Rue de Flandres. The two establishments pronounced necessary by the decree of the 6th of August, 1859, were constructed simultaneously; the slaughter-house was thrown open on the 1st of January, 1867.

“The names of some of the old Paris streets indicate the site of the markets in which butchers displayed their stock. One is reminded of their existence in the city by the church of St. Pierre aux Bœufs, which was destroyed in 1857; then, near the Châtelet, by St. Jacques de la Boucherie, by the Rues de la Tuerie, de la Tonnerie, and de la Vieille-Place-aux-Veaux, surnamed the Place aux Saincts-Jons, after the name of a celebrated family of butchers; and by the Quai de la Mégisserie. Formerly, animals were killed everywhere: to each stall a slaughter-house was attached.” “Blood streams down the streets,” said Mercier; “it curdles under your feet and reddens your shoes.”

Despite various attempts made to banish beyond the walls these slaughter-houses, which from every point of view were so dangerous, the old spirit of routine long predominated, and in the early part of the present century animals still had their throats cut in front of the very doors where meat was sold. It required no fewer than three Imperial decrees (9th Feb. and 19th July, 1810, and 24th Feb., 1811) to put an end to this intolerable state of things. These decrees prescribed the immediate construction of five slaughter-houses adjacent to the Quartiers du Roule, de Montmartre, de Popincourt, d’Ivry,[{309}] and de Vaugirard; but the work was not finished till the end of 1818. To-day, they have partly disappeared, swept away by new thoroughfares; and they ought to be entirely replaced by the great establishment of the Rue de Flandres. This latter is not beautiful, and has about it nothing ornamental; it is joined to the cattle market by a bridge thrown over the Canal de l’Ourcq.

As well as at the market, the animals are counted when they enter the slaughter-house, into which they are carefully introduced one by one through a half-open door. Opposite this door, and beyond a vast paved court, are thirty-two pavilions, separated into equal groups by three horizontal and three transversal streets, intersecting each other at right angles. These pavilions contain stalls, in which the beasts are kept whilst alive, and 125 tubs (échaudoirs) in which their flesh is divided up after the slaughtering has taken place within the interior court, situated in the centre of the buildings. These échaudoirs and courts are paved with care, and the ground, sloped for drainage, terminates in a gutter which carries all waste fluids down a sink. There are a great many fountains and an abundant supply of water.

The thousand workmen who daily attend the place commence their labours at six in the morning and continue till towards one in the afternoon. At two o’clock the butchers come to make their purchases from the “chevillards,” as those men are called whose business consists in procuring beasts at market in order to kill and sell them in portions to the retailers. As soon as it is dressed, every animal is hung up to a strong iron peg, or cheville, whence the name of the wholesale buyers is derived. One hundred and eighty numbered vehicles, each of an officially certified weight, ply between the slaughter-houses and the different quarters of the city. Before leaving, they have to pass before the pavilion of the octroi clerks, and stand on a weigh-bridge, so that the exact quantity of meat they carry may be formally attested. The dues, payable on the spot, are 2·0735 centimes per kilogramme, of which some two centimes are reserved especially for what are called the slaughter-house dues.

THE VILLETTE ABATTOIRS.

The work goes on every day; but Good Friday, as may well be imagined, causes a great rush of activity. The store-rooms are empty, the wants of the town must be supplied, and the men fall to work; wholesale slaughtering then takes place incessantly from the middle of the night until, perhaps, three o’clock the next afternoon. Notwithstanding the old slaughter-houses still subsisting, it is the one in the Rue Flandres which employs the greatest number of men and contributes most to the food of Paris. In 1868, in the general slaughter-house, and in the slaughter-houses of Villejuif, Grenelle, Belleville, de la Petite-Villette, and Batignolles, 1,725,365 animals were put to death, representing a weight of 107,577,968 kilogrammes of meat ready for retail sale. The average weight of the oxen was 350 kilogrammes, of cows 210, of calves 65, and of sheep 19. The average prices of meat bought at the slaughter-house were, in 1868, 1·34 francs for ox-beef, 1·25 francs for cow-beef, 1·65 francs for veal, and 1·35 francs for mutton.

After describing how the slaughterers perform[{310}] their work, in language somewhat too graphic for our readers, M. Ducamp points out the difference between the Christian and the Jewish method of slaughtering animals. The Jewish butcher in every case cuts the animal’s throat. To strike with a pole-axe might have the effect of coagulating the victim’s blood, and the Levitical laws on the subject are strict and not to be trifled with. No animal, according to the Jewish custom, should be put to death except in piety, and the Jewish sacrificer, like his counterpart among the Mohammedans of India, utters solemn words as he makes the fatal cut.