Unfortunate animals

WARNING - THIS ENTRY CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT IS GRAPHIC AND MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME PEOPLE. 

DO NOT READ ONWARDS IF YOU ARE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE.

Perhaps it goes without saying that in days long gone people were more cruel to animals than they are today. Some would say that it was always inevitable as people were not so considerate then as they are now. Those same people might observe that life in general was more brutal.

WW1 caused innumerable deaths and injuries to horses. Around the same time events such as polar exploration also led to the traumatic deaths of animals, mainly horses. Just where did the average person gain experience of such traumatic events, what made them able to be involved in such activities. Perhaps in everyday life, which was such as to involve exposure to various things that now would be unthinkable.

The prime source for what follows was a lady born in 1921, and raised in Dodworth Bottom.

She said a number of things but here are the main ones. Her words have been paraphrased.

Shocking as it may be to those of modern sensibilities, the following needs to be shared. Amongst the things of note are that the animals were slaughtered in the midst of the community, meaning that inevitably many more people were aware of or part of the process - than is common today. Children were permitted to witness what is now done ‘out-of-site’ and earshot in almost all cases.

The site of the slaughter-house is now beneath the playground in Dodworth Bottom. 

They came into Dodworth Bottom [the cattle] from somewhere beyond Pilley Hill, if I ever knew more than that then I have forgotten. The slaughter house was in the centre of the buildings, in fact it was beneath the butchers shop - the frontage of which was on the road that ran through the centre of the community - the road from where Pilley Hill ends and then goes towards Snowhill - in fact the road still runs in exactly the same place. When the butchers shop was there it had an engraved window to allow light in. The slaughter house was sort of in the cellar. The entrance to the slaughter house was from South Street, it was a stone cobbled slope down to a small yard. 

The animals were usually cows. When they got to the top of the hill [Pilley Hill] , they smelled the slaughter house and seemed to know that it was a danger to them. In response they called out, they bellowed loudly and resisted being led down the hill. Usually gangs of men appeared and and pulled on ropes attached to the cow to force it down the hill and down the slope into the slaughter house. Once there it would be killed, and the butcher would dress the corpse.

In about 1950 a cow escaped the slaughter house and in a noisy panic ran towards Silver Street where it entered a house close to the top of the street. The house was a typical terraced home and had two rooms on the ground floor. The terrified creature trampled all before it within the house as it tried to escape. Unverified reports at the time said that it opened its bowels inside the house.

People ran about not knowing what to do, they made a lot of noise that further frightened the critter. Children were taken from the scene and put indoors.

Eventually the men with ropes came and put them around the animals neck. These they used to persuade the animal to leave the house. They were probably led by the butcher who seemed to know about these things.

Once an animal had been led or dragged against its will into the slaughter house a set procedure was followed in all cases. As often as not nobody stopped us kids from watching what happened - they were all either too busy or seemed to take pleasure from watching our reactions. Those involved were all men, it seemed to be regarded as a masculine thing to do - to be involved in the killing. We knew that it was cruel, but after seeing it a few times, it seemed less so, and we gradually got used to it. But I will never get the sound of the animals from my mind as they bellowed in distress.

There was an iron ring set in the floor of the yard or the cellar itself. One of the ropes that had been used to drag the animal was put through the ring, and pulled tight. Sometimes a gang of men were used to pull on the rope until the animal’s head was on the ground.

Then the ‘pole-axing’ took place. A pole-axing hammer was used. It was like a sledge hammer with a thin end, which was driven into the animals head. The ‘slaughter man’ made a mighty blow, lifting the pole-axe above his head and bringing it down with great force. It often took just a single blow. He was swift and accurate and the beast died quickly.

Addendum:

From a different source the following comment was obtained. As above, paraphrasing has taken place, and a sensitivity filter has been applied.

It was said that, occasionally the men in the Miner’s Inn public house close by, would become involved in the slaughtering. Money, betting and drink may have been involved, certainly some party would have had to compensate the slaughterer for his lack of work. On the occasions when this happened, the men in the pub were said to be the worse for drink and would attend the slaughter house in a gang. The designated one would take charge of the pole-axe and the pole-axing. Not being as skilled as the regular slaughter-man the pole-axe would sometime miss its intended spot and was known to end up in the animal’s eye.

Just when this inhumane practice ended is not at present known by the author.

Typically, when first encountered, pit ponies involved in underground coal mining would appear to have a benign manner. Regrettably, occasions arose in which they became involved in serious accident’s.

In the Yorkshire Mining Museum is a device for ending the life of pit ponies when they were unfortunate enough to suffer serious and irreversible injuries in mining accidents. It worked in a similar way to the pole-axe in that it drove a metal tube or bolt into the brain of the unfortunate animal, but in this case the chances of accidental suffering were minimised by the use of a kind of helmet and a guide for the bolt. It was said that the regular handler of the animal would be the one to administer the fatal blow.

As above, just when the practice ceased is not known.

It was said to me that in pre-WW2 days, the cleaning of a chimney in the case of typical terraced house, commonly involved mis-use of an animal, in this case a bird. In these cases a man with a cockerel would climb onto a house roof, and identify the chimney to be ‘swept’.

A man would take the unfortunate cockerel and tie its lower legs together with something like an old clothes-line. Then he would invert and insert the live bird into the chimney and lower it until it reached the bottom of the chimney where it would be retrieved by another man. During its passage down the chimney the bird would of course panic and flap its wings in a vain bid to gain control and mitigation of some kind. In its distress the bird would clean the chimney. Fortunately the said practice had ceased by the end of WW2. 

The Editor