number slaughtered under Federal supervision, (2) the estimated farm slaughter, and (3) the number exported from the country alive. After these deductions there is left a remainder which necessarily represents the small-butcher slaughter, the whole of which is without Federal inspection.

The totals of these various items are given in the statement below:

Estimated number of cattle, sheep, and swine in United States, and number slaughtered, with and without Federal inspection, etc., during 1907.

" Percentages applied: Cattle, 20 per cent; sheep, 36 per cent; swine, 109 per cent. NOTE. In addition to the above, there were 2,024,387 calves slaughtered under Government supervision, and probably fully as many without Government inspection.

It is seen from the foregoing that practically 5,000,000 cattle, nearly 8,000,000 sheep, and over 10,000,000 hogs were slaughtered by butchers in 1907 without Federal inspection, to which may be added about 3,000,000 calves. All these 26,000,000 animals were consumed by the people of the United States, and the responsibility of inspecting them has rested wholly upon the State and local authorities, since they are beyond the reach of the Federal inspectors.

LOCAL SLAUGHTERHOUSES AND THEIR EVILS.

The slaughterhouses where animals are killed for local consumption are usually isolated and scattered about the city or town, either situated on some back street, surrounded by stables and dwelling houses, or outside of the corporate limits, each butcher apparently trying to avoid observation. In many instances the houses are located on the banks of streams or creeks, and the drainage is toward such streams. Frequently the offal is thrown on the banks to decay or to be devoured by hogs or rats.

Such houses, in addition to being unsightly, malodorous, unclean, and insanitary in the extreme, are actually centers for spreading disease. Where hogs are slaughtered it is more than probable that a hog infected with trichina will be killed. The offal of such a hog when eaten by rats will infect them, and these rats, if later killed and eaten by hogs, will again communicate the disease. Rats act as direct transmitters of trichinosis to hogs, and this is not the only disease which may be spread by offal feeding to hogs.

Old worn-out dairy cows are not infrequently killed at these houses, and from the large amount of tuberculosis found in this grade of cattle it follows that tuberculosis will be communicated to hogs feeding upon the offal.

The local slaughterhouse is also the center of infection for a number of animal parasites which are injurious to live stock, or in some cases even to man, and which are spread by dogs. It is well known that dogs come to such slaughterhouses for food, and when infected viscera are eaten by them they become infected, and through them infection

Note the exposed drainage.

FIG. 1.-Insanitary conditions at small local slaughterhouse. Hogs are often fed on offal under such abattoirs, and rats and other animals have free access, thus favoring the spread of disease.

may be transmitted to other animals and to man. Several species of tapeworms are distributed in this manner.

Hog cholera is another disease which is spread from local slaughterhouses by improper disposal of the offal. This disease is communicated either by direct infection from hogs eating diseased viscera or by the infection being carried in rivers or creeks and spreading to farms lower down.

That the conditions which obtain at these local slaughterhouses need attention from authorities competent to deal with the situation is shown by a recent investigation made by the State board of health

of Indiana of those slaughterhouses which do not have Federal inspection. The report stated that

Of the 327 slaughterhouses inspected, only 23, or about 7 per cent, were found to fulfill the sanitary standards. The standards called for in the Indiana purefood law, approved March 6, 1907, were accepted, and said standards are as follows:

"Insanitary conditions shall be deemed to exist wherever and whenever any one or more of the following conditions appear or are found, to wit: If the slaughterhouse is dilapidated and in a state of decay; if the floors or side walls are soaked with decaying blood or other animal matter; if efficient fly screens are not provided; if the drainage of the slaughterhouse or slaughterhouse yard is not efficient; if maggots or filthy pools or hog wallows exist in the slaughterhouse yard or under the slaughterhouse; if the water supply used in connection with the cleansing or preparing is not pure and unpolluted; if hogs are kept in

the slaughterhouse yard or fed therein on animal offal, or if the odors of putrefaction plainly exist therein; if carcasses or parts of carcasses are transported from place to place when not covered with clean white cloths, or if kept in unclean, bad-smelling refrigerators, or if kept in unclean or bad-smelling coldstorage rooms."

At nearly all slaughterhouses inspected, foul, nauseating odors filled the air for yards around. Swarms of flies filled the air and the buildings and covered the carcasses which were hung up to cool. Beneath the houses was to be found a thin mud or a mixture of blood and earth, churned by hogs, which are kept to feed upon offal. Maggots frequently existed in numbers so great as to cause a visible movement of the mud. Water for washing the meat was frequently drawn from dug wells, which receive seepage of the slaughterhouse yards, or the water was taken from the adjoining streams, to which the hogs had access. Dilapidated buildings were the usual thing, and always the most repulsive surroundings and odors existed.

Slaughterhouses of fair sanitary condition were not found. They were all awfully and abominably bad or else met the standard completely.

A concrete example of conditions as they exist may be cited of a large eastern city. In this city there are 275 slaughterhouses which do not have Federal inspection. The approximate combined yearly kill at these plants is nearly 2,000,000 animals, as follows:

The meat-inspection force of this city consists of three men-one State inspector and two city inspectors-none of whom are veterinarians, but all of whom were formerly butchers. Their inspection necessarily must be hasty and superficial. It is, of course, a physical impossibility for these inspectors to make a post-mortem examination. of all animals slaughtered. They merely make occasional visits to the killing beds, usually when cows are slaughtered.

One of the slaughterhouses of the larger sort in this city kills approximately 5,000 cattle, 150,000 sheep, and 50,000 calves a year, no hogs being slaughtered. This house has been described as follows:

The several departments of the establishment are each in a separate building. The killing department, for example, is in a large barnlike wooden structure.

It has one floor and a basement. Cattle, sheep, and calves are killed in the basement and on the first floor. The basement is floored with cement, but the flooring in the room above is of wood, filthy and insanitary. When slaughtering is being done, heads and hides are piled in heaps on the floor, and livers and tails are scattered about. Butchers frequently hold their knives in their mouths, wear grimy clothes, spit on the floor, and wash down carcasses with dirty water carried about in a bucket.

The ceilings, walls, and pillars are exceptionally dirty; blood and fecal matter besmatter everything.

FIG. 4.-Calf-killing room in uninspected slaughterhouse.

Observe filthy condition of walls and floor, and dirty clothes hanging on wall. This place handles 5 or 6 carloads of hogs and 10 to 15 cattle a week. The class of cattle killed is mostly worn-out dairy cows, many of which are tuberculous.

The trucks, trays, and other receptacles are filthy, as are the tables on which gut is removed. Chutes and cutting blocks are also dirty, and no effort is ever made to clean them. No toilet room is provided in the building.

The coolers or ice chests are in a revolting condition. The floors are wet and dirty, the walls damp. Livers are thrown on the floor; foul-smelling barrels are allowed to stand on the killing floor. The pens are in an inconceivably filthy condition. The top of the cooler is filled with cast-off shoes and clothes,