PREVENTION OF CRUELTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3823, 21 June 1927, Page 61

PREVENTION OF CRUELTY.

MEETING OF SOCIETY. A meeting of the committee of the Otago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was held in the board room of the secretary (Mr E. S. Wilson) on Tuesday afternoon, and was attended by Sir George Fenwick (in the chair), Mrs Porteous, Miss Porteous, Messrs A. D. Sullivan, J. Shepherd, T. Elliott, S. Leith, Crosby Morris, W. D. Snowball, and W. F. Sligo. The Hon. G. M. Thomson wrote calling the attention of the society to the killing of domestic animals, cattle, sheep, and pigs. He felt sure that there was room for improvement in some of the methods adopted, especially in meat freezing works. He referred the society to an article on “Scientific Slaughtering” in Nature for April, and said he was surprised that electrocution had not been given a trial. It would not only be painless, but it would obviate the distressing fear which animals often exhibited at the sight or smell of blood. In answer to a question by the chairman, Mr Snowball detailed the various methods of killing animals. In the larger abattoirs the cattle were either shot or stunned by the hammer. These methods were quite satisfactory. Pithing had been done away with in the large works, but in some of the smaller places it was the method still adopted in the killing. It couhl not be said, however, that it was quite satisfactory. The method of killing sheep was almost instautaneous and satisfactory, the animal's neck being broken simultaneously with the cutting of the throat.

Miss Porteous wanted to know how pigs were killed. Mr Snowball: By stunning and bleeding. , Miss Porteous: Are they quite unconscious .when they are stunued? Mr Snowball said they were. The custom in the country districts, however, was really to let them bleed to death. They were not always stunned. In American works they were hung up by the hind legs and bled. There they were not stunned. He added that the Jewish method was to bleed an animal to death, and that this method had never been stopped. The position actually was that some people stunned an animal before killing, and some did not. . , The Chairman said he did not see that the committee could do anything. Mr Snowball said that electricity was all right in killing when the apparatus worked right, but if it did not go off well it was an awful death. The discussion then ended. It was decided to grant a bonus to the society's inspector (Mr J. Craig) , tic chairman stating that he had established a record increase in the list of membership. Their membership was bigger now than ever.