“At the present time the Board understand that a ‘humane-killer’ can be got which is adapted for stunning any kind of animal, reasonable in cost, and effective and simple in operation. It appears, too, that the use of the improved instruments can readily be learnt, so that no prolonged training is needed for their proper manipulation.”
One can only hope that every Local Authority will now adopt this clause, and insist on the stunning of sheep as well as of all other animals.
Pigs.—“The Committee ascertained that it is the usual practice in large establishments in England to stun pigs by a blow on the forehead previous to sticking them, and there is no difficulty in carrying this out, as the pig’s head is soft as compared with that of the sheep. The Committee are of opinion that the preliminary stunning should be enforced in all cases, the evidence tending to show that this operation is often limited to pigs which are so large or strong as to give trouble, or to cases where, owing to the location of the slaughter-house, the squeals of the stuck pigs cause annoyance to the neighbourhood. The Committee feel that considerations of humanity are at least as important as those above mentioned.”
A sentiment with which most of us will presumably agree. Note, however, that the Admiralty Committee refer above only to large establishments. Pigs still appear to be killed in ways that the following quotation describes:
“I, with another witness, saw five pigs killed—three small ones and two large ones. The pigs were ‘knifed’ one at a time and allowed to wander round the slaughter-house bleeding and in a drunken, reeling, rolling state, and at the same time uttering most plaintive cries.” (From a letter to a daily journal.)
And Mr. R. O. P. Paddison (one of the foremost workers in the cause of humane slaughtering) thus describes the method adopted in most of our bacon factories:
“First the animals are hung up alive head downwards by a chain fastened to a hind foot, and then they are stuck and bleed to death. The work is done quickly in a collective sense—at the rate possibly of 100 to 200 pigs an hour, but each individual pig suffers from forty seconds to two or three minutes, and several pigs struggle and shriek at the same time.”
I have not personally witnessed either of the methods so described.
I understand that some bacon-curers consider, or did consider, stunning cruel, on the ground that several blows were often required. The use of humane-killers disposes of this objection.
The late eminent physiologist, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, in a paper read before the Medical Society of London some years ago, says: