The cruelties of the flesh traffic / by Josiah Oldfield.

  • Josiah Oldfield
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cruelties of the flesh traffic / by Josiah Oldfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/50 page 17
    once seen, will never be forgotten. In some cases, however, the animal will not fall, but will only bellow and roar, and dash its body from side to side in its agony. If the rope or chain holds taut, so that the head cannot move, the man simply lifts up his axe again, and brings it down again as before with just the same result. Ifthe man is strong and skilled, and the gearing is good, he nearly always succeeds in bringing the animal down in one or at most two or three blows, but if he is not very strong, or not skilled enough to hit exactly in the right spot, or if the animal can get its head at all loose in its agonising struggles, he may hit away for several times, and may even—in rare cases—have to stop and rest awhile, while the poor thing stands in all the terror of death and suffering before him. Where ropes are used, and these have to be tied in a primitive way, or held by another man, the poor creature is generally able to get its head so far loose that much difficulty is experienced in getting it close up again and in hitting in the right spot; and what agonies are endured when an excited man is bringing down a spiked steel axe, blow after blow, with all his might upon the head, can be conjectured rather than realized. A blow above the orbit would break through and burst the eyeball; above the nose would force its way into the delicately nervous chambers where the olfactory nerves are all spread out and would cause intensest agony, while the front of the head generally below the margin of the frontal bone is highly sensitive and a lifetime of suffering could be crowded into those terrible minutes which prelude unconsciousness and death. »
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