The men were engaged putting up Government supplies for her Majesty's navy at the time of our visit. Considering the nature of the material being operated on, the cleanliness of the works was wonderful.
We were first shown into the boning-room, where mighty carcases were being stripped with a deftness and celerity only begotten of long practice. The bones were bundled off to boiling-down and glue works outside the town. Some of them are used to make rich stock for the soups.
The second stage is that wherein the flesh is put in pickle tanks to extract the superfluous blood.
Thirdly, it is next blanched by being loaded in an iron cage, which is worked up and down by machinery, and dipped into boiling water. The attendants forking in the huge masses of flesh with great steel forks was a new sensation, and the forks would have suited "Blunderbore" of Jack the Giant-Killer renown to a nicety.
Fourthly, it was then, after being cut to requisite sizes, filled in hot into the cans, which have previously all been made on the premises by a staff of experts, and have been scalded in hot water, and thoroughly cleansed.
Fifthly, the cans are next subjected to enormous pressure, ingeniously applied by a patent arrangement of turn-screws at a long table, capable of pressing many tins simultaneously. Each can has to undergo a pressure of three tons to the inch, and the process is a patent of the company.
