ON TEE KILLING OF ANIMALS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1623, 27 February 1885, Page 5

ON TEE KILLING OF ANIMALS.

"Christinas tiino : Remember the turkeys." A correspondent writing from iiain Bagh, Dehra Doon, N.VV.r, India, sends mo a card bearin^^ie above beading, an! in which " Householders and Hosts" are reminded that cooks have a horrible way of killing turkeys — by tearing out the tongue. " It is begged," continues the author of this plea for the maltreated turkeys, "That the birds shall be killed as other table-fowl are— haldl, and that proof be exacted ; as the other way of dealing with the poor birds is as needless as it is horrible. I trust that in this country the cooks, or at least the poulterers, do not tear out the tongues }f turkeys, but that they slaughter them by the haldl process. I have not the slightest notion whether haldl means ringing the neck or cutting the throat of the, fowl ; but it is presumably a humane way of despatchingpoultry. Not quite so humane perhaps as the "Euthanasia for Animals," on which the admirable Dr Benjamin Ward Richardson has been lecturing at the rooms of the Society of Arts. The philantrophic physician has arrived at the conviction that the best thing wherewith to induce the sleep of death, in animals is carbonic oxide generated from charcoal. Dr liichardson has been investigating the subject during several years, tut beiug lately called upon to superintend the erection of a " lethal chamber" for the Dogs' Home at Battersea, he has been enabled to reduce these theories to practice. By means of a very simple apparatus any number of animals can be cheaply and expeditioualy lulled into the slumber from which there is ao walkiug ; and at Batteraea, since the middle of May last, no loss than 7000 dogs have been painlessly killed. There is no reason, thinks Dr Kichardaou, why all animals intended for the food of man should not be rendered insensible before beiug slaughtered, Indeed, the "Model Abattoirs Society" is already engaged in fitting up " a lethal chamber " on a butcher's premises. The meat, _Dr liichardson tells us, was in no way harmed by che previous stupefaction of the auimal ; and the bloocl flowed as freely as it would haAe done by the ordinary mode of slaughter. The worthy doctor also explained how a smaller and ambulatory "lethal chamber" was being constructed, " which might be employed for the euthanasia of domestic peuj whose life through old age or injury had become a misery to mem." — U-.A. ti. in Illustrated London News.