or Abattoir, a-bat-twar', a slaughter house. Cities find it necessary to confine the slaughter of food animals to certain localities where cleanliness can be secured and all possible offense avoided. Under Nero an imposing slaughter house was provided for the butchers of Rome. Napoleon found a shocking state of affairs in Paris. Bellowing cattle and foot-sore sheep were driven through the leading streets, and blood from the shambles flowed along the gutters into the Seine; but under his direction abattoirs were established which are still good examples of their kind. The animals killed in the Paris slaughter houses, as reported for a recent year, included 216,536 oxen, 55,934 cows, 229,772 calves, 1,785,890 sheep, 226,213 pigs, and 7,546 horses, yielding a total of 350,000,000 pounds of butcher's meat. American slaughter houses are models of convenience, dispatch, and efficiency. Boston and New York are well provided. The greatest establishments are, of course, in the West, at Chicago and other cities of the corn belt. If life must be taken to supply food, it can not be done in a less objectionable way. The animals are driven up elevated gangways. In a few minutes-twelve for a hog, forty for a steer-the dressed carcasses are hanging in the cooling room. During this short time the sides of beef pass through the hands of 150 different workmen, each of whom has his particular work to do. Every drop of blood-every part-is saved and utilized. Hair goes to the plasterer, hides to the tanner, horns and hoofs to the glue factory, fine scraps of bone and meat are packed in sacks for chicken feed, and offal is converted into fertilizers. The economy resulting from special facilities and the avoidance of waste are such that local meat-shops very generally purchase from these centers. Carloads of hogs and cattle are shipped to these large markets. Fresh meats, canned meats, canned beef, dried beef, hams, shoulders, bacon, pickled pork, tripe, sausage, lard, tallow, soap, candles, glue, and other factory products are shipped back again. It is more economical to pay freight both ways than to butcher at home and throw away a part of the animal or fail to use it advantageously. A large establishment is capable of handling eight beeves a minute or 4,000 a day. One of the large companies has packing plants at Chicago, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, St. Louis, St. Joseph, St. Paul, Sioux City, and Fort Worth. It distributes meat products by means of over 5,000 refrigerator cars and 300 branch houses in the leading cities and towns. Government inspectors examine all meats and products. Every article shipped must bear the inspector's stamp certifying to its fitness for food. During the year 1909 35,672,075 animals were inspected at the time of slaughter. Of these 141,057 entire carcasses and 899,628 parts of carcasses, were condemned because of disease or other conditions, making a total of over 1,000,000 animals condemned in whole or in part. In addition on reinspection, nearly 25,000,000 pounds of meat and meat products which had become unwholesome since inspection at the time of slaughter were condemned. The meat inspection has continued to grow in volume. The expenditures on account of this work during the fiscal year amounted to about $2,884,000. Some notion of the magnitude of the packing house business may be had from an official report of the business for 1908, the sales of different companies for the year being as follows: Swift. . . . . $250,000,000 Armour. . . . . 240,000,000 Morris. . . . . 110,000,000 Cudahy. . . . . 80,000,000 National Packing. . . . . 100,000,000 Total. . . . . $780,000,000 See CATTLE; HOGS; PARIS; LONDON.