The Boss Butcher.

Southland Times, Issue 9390, 2 December 1886, Page 3

The Boss Butcher.

» . « It was believed, till recently, that the title of " the largest meat dealer in the world " belonged to Mr Ingham, of Montreal, who yearly exports over 50,000 frozen bullocks' carcases to the United Eiogdom. It would seen], however, according to tbe information recently received from Chicago, that the celebrated batcher jast mentioned is far. from reaching the total amount of business done in tbe butchering line by aMr Swift. The latter slaughtered in 1885, no fetter than 429,483 bullocks, or nearly half a million ! Mr Swift is a Yankee, about 47 years old, and how he got on in life is worth mentioning. In 1876 he had in East Massachusetts a small butcher's shop which he abandoned to start business on a larger scale. He did not settle iv any town, but travelled the Western State?, buying cattle and droving his purchases to the markets of the more populous east coast. Having made many important business connections, and gained a large experience in the line of cattle dealing, he sßttled in Chicago in 1878, and started a wholesale butcher's bnsineee, with the view of supplying the neighbouring ' States. Fortune favoured him, his business increased rspidly, aud he is now tbe largest carcase butcher of the two hemispheres. In fact his average reaches 1400 head of cattle a day. The latter all are bought either at sales in Chicago, or at those held in the western States, and are all ' slaughtered in Mr Swift's contra] establishment. The men employed in this wonderful slaughterhouse number 1500, and are under the management of an overseer who gets a very large salary. A curious fact is that one man, with the help of a patent machine, which inflicts a blow on the top of the bullock's head, suffices to knock down all the beasts butchered in a day. The animals once skinned and dressed, are packed in refrigerated waggons and sent to all eastern towns, where agents store them away in iced cellars and' sell them to retail butchers. These patent waggons are the exclusive property of tbe firrr., which owns no fewer than 900, always rolling on the principal railways of the American Union. Mr Swift may be regarded as the creator of this line of business, as eight years ago, when he started wholesale butchering, all retailers had to buy live stock.