Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1908 — NEED WE TORTURE CATTLE [ARTICLE]

NEED WE TORTURE CATTLE

Unnecessary Cruelty to Cows and Sheep in Transportation. THE NE£D qf Reform. Sidetracked for Hours or Days With Insufficient Food and Water— Uncovered Cars Render It' Difficult for Animals to Retain Footing in Sleety Weather. Defenders of present conditions have a good deal to say about “improved stock cars,” that is, cars provided with troughs for feeding and watering the cattle without unloading them en route. The superintendent of one of New York’s largest meat companies assured me that these cars were used almost exclusively, and that cattle In transit were well cared for in every way, saye a writer in the New York Tribune, while on a tour of inspection of one of the large stockyards In that city. “Show me some of the improved stock cars, those with feed troughs,” the visitor asked the Inspector of the yard. The Inspector shook his head. “You don’t see many of those,’.’ he said. “The cattle couldn’t be driven to the troughs to feed, if there were troughs; it wouldn’t be practicable; they are packed too tight. Here,” he went on, pausing by an empty car, “is a typical stock car. Five out of six of the cars that come In here are like this one.”

It was an open box car, without troughs. The sides of it were partly of slats, which had wide spaces between them, giving practically no protection against the weather. There was absolutely no bedding on the floor. “This car,”, said the inspector, “Is just as it came in last night, with a let of steers in it. You see the floor’s not bedded, and, naturally, especially in sleety, freezing weather, it’s not easy for an animal to keep its footing on a floor like this, with the car bumping and swaying over the rails.” Dr. Jaques, of Chicago, says: “1 know that the cattle car in general use is open on all sides to the weatner, the cold being much increased by rapid transit. The cars are usually crowded, to save room and to prevent savage animals from goring one another. The long journeys, unbroken by rest, result in animals falling down from exhaustion, when they are trampled upon by the others. It is a usual thing for cars to arrive at their destination with a certain percentage of dead and wounded.” At Buffalo, according to statistics gathered by Dr. 'William 0. Stillman, president of the National Humane Association, there were taken from the cars in the year ending with October, 1905, 13,547 dead cattle which had died in transit, and 10,9/2 cattle more or less seriously crippled by falling in the cars, if this was the case under the 28-hour law, how would the animals fare under a law extending tne time to forty hours? The 28-hour law is disregarded in the far West. One Western railroad kept cattle on its cars for from fifty to sixty hours without anything to eat or drink. The uninitiated may find it difficult to believe that the catle owners anc the railroads can be so careless oi marketable property. As to that, the history of cattle raising shows that the stockman will often submit to lose a certain percentage of cattle rather than take measures to prevent the loss; witness 7 how cattle are left out on the great ranges of the West, to perish in the terrible snowstorms by thousands. Whether it is carelessness or cruelty, whether it is that these losses amount to less than it would cost to protect- the cattle properly, there are the facts. As to the shipping, there is no doubt that the cattle owners would be pleased to have the railroads take better care ot livestock, and not smash it up so badly in transit; but this the railroads have so far declined to do —at least without charging more than the shippers are willing to pay.

Many cattle owners, though, do not let the usages of the railroads cost them too much. They have their methods. For instance, when a lot or steers are prisoned in a car for two or three days, bumping along the tracks, or perhaps sidetracked at some way station for hours because it is Inconvenient to move them Just then, they lose, through hunger and thirst and exhaustion and terror, considerable in weight. Promptly upon reaching their destination, however, they are allowed to take all the water ano feed they can hold, which brings up their weight and makes them look plump to the buyer. Physicians say that this treatment (longer hunger ana thirst followed by excessive eating and drinking) makes an animal feverish, tends to render virulent any seeds of disease that may be lurking in its system; in short, makes it unfit for human food. But then the railroads and the cati.emen do not have to pay the doctor bills of the persons who are m«dg IB by eating impure meat.

Franklin—“ls Smith a man of the world?” Penn —“I guess so; I haven't heard of his funeral.” Rev. Edward Lloyd Jones, of Manchester, England, is credited with having originated the phrase The Grand Gid Man,” as applied to Mr.