The warehouse is built by the
side of the river, so that the vessels which are to carry the corn to
England or elsewhere, come close under the walls, and the grain is
discharged into the vessels by means of large wooden pipes or troughs,
through which it is shot at once into the hold. Mr. Wilkins has seen
80,000 bushels discharged in this manner, in one day.
We afterwards drove about six miles into the country, through oceans of
mud, to see one of the great slaughter and packing-houses. I did not
venture out of the carriage, but the proprietor took Mr. Wilkins, Lord
Radstock, and papa through every part of the building. In a yard below
were a prodigious number of immense oxen, and the first process was to
see one of these brought into the inside of the building by means of a
windlass; which drew it along by a rope attached to its horns and
passing through a ring on the floor.
The beast, by means of men belabouring it from behind, and this rope
dragging it in front, was brought in and its head drawn down towards the
ring, when a man with a sledge-hammer felled it instantaneously to the
ground; and without a struggle it was turned over on its back by the
side of eight or ten of its predecessors who had just shared the same
fate, and were already undergoing the various processes to which they
had afterwards to be subjected.
Pages:
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223