look at, but happily very short. A trap-hatch opens at the side of this
enclosure, through which the corpses are thrust into the sticking-room,
whence the blood flows into tanks beneath, to be sold, together with the
hoofs and hair, to the manufacturers of prussiate of potash and Prussian
blue. Thence they are pushed down an inclined plane into a trough
containing a thousand gallons of boiling water, and broad enough to take
in piggy lengthways. By the time they have passed down this caldron,
they are ready for scraping, for which purpose a large table is joined
on to the lower end of the caldron, and on which they are artistically
thrown. Five men stand in a row on each side of the table, armed with
scrapers, and, as piggy passes down, he gets scraped cleaner and
cleaner, till the last polishes him as smooth as a yearling baby. Having
thus reached the lower end of the table, there are a quantity of hooks
fitted to strong wooden arms, which revolve round a stout pillar, and
which, in describing the circle, plumb the lower end of the table. On
these piggy is hooked, and the operation of cutting open and cleansing
is performed--at the rate of three a minute--by operators steeped in
blood, and standing in an ocean of the same, despite the eternal buckets
of water with which a host of boys keep deluging the floor. These
operations finished, piggy is hung up on hooks to cool, and, when
sufficiently so, he is removed thence to the other end of the building,
ready for sending to the preparing-houses, whither he and his defunct
brethren are convoyed in carts, open at the side, and containing about
thirty pigs each.

The whole of this part of the town during porking season is alive with
these carts, and we will now follow one, so that we may see how piggy is
finally disposed of. The cart ascends the hill till it comes to a line
of buildings with the canal running at the back thereof; a huge and
solid block lies ready for the corpse, and at each side appear a pair of
brawny arms grasping a long cleaver made scimitar-shape; smaller tables
are around, and artists with sharp knives attend thereat. Piggy is
brought in from the cart, and laid on the solid block; one blow of the
scimitar-shaped cleaver severs his head, which is thrown aside and sold
in the town, chiefly, I believe, to Germans, though of course a Hebrew
might purchase if he had a fancy therefor. The head off, two blows sever
him lengthways; the hams, the shoulders, and