shattered is too painful to dwell on. Lord Somerville, took a person with him to Lisbon, to be instructed in the Portuguese method of slaying oxen, or, as it is there termed, "of laying down cattle." It is done by passing a knife through the vertebræ of the neck into the spine, which causes instant death. His lordship has proposed to have our slaughterers instructed in the practice, but with all the stupidity and prejudice which belongs to them, they have refused. The customs of the Jews, and from them the Mahometans, in respect to killing those animals which their laws allow them to eat, merits applause, when compared with the cruelty of Christians. The person appointed for this purpose is obliged to prepare a knife of a considerable length, which is made as sharp as the keenest razor, the utmost care being taken, that the least notch or inequality may not remain upon the edge; with this he is obliged to cut the throat and blood vessels at one stroke, whereby the painful method of knocking them down, which often requires several barbarous blows, and stabbing them in the neck with a blunt knife, is avoided. Every beast mangled in killing, is accounted unclean.
There is not one man in a hundred, if not brought up in a slaughter-house, but who will own, that of all trades he could not be a butcher; and I question whether ever any person so much as killed a chicken, without reluctancy, the first time. Some people are not io be persuaded to taste of any creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with, while they were alive; others extend their scruplesno farther than to their own poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of themselves. Yet all of them will feed heartily, and without remorse, on beef, mutton, and fowls, when they are bought in the market.
