[Lands of the Slave and the Free by Henry A. Murray]@TWC D-Link book
Lands of the Slave and the Free

CHAPTER VIII
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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 the rib-pieces fly off at a blow each, and it has been stated that "two hands, in less than thirteen hours, cut up eight hundred and fifty hogs, averaging over two hundred pounds each, two others placing them on the blocks for the purpose.


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