SEGREGATION OF ANIMALS _about to be slaughtered from slaughtering operations_.—“It appears to be the common practice, even in modern and well-regulated slaughter-houses, to keep the animals, which are immediately awaiting slaughter, in pens which are mere annexes to the slaughter chamber itself, and in many cases in full view of all that goes on inside . . . There is no point which the Committee have more carefully investigated than the question as to whether animals do or do not suffer from fear from this contact, and the evidence of those best qualified to judge is so conflicting that no absolute verdict can be given . . . The animal should be given the full benefit of the doubt.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.) But the animal is _not_ given the benefit of the doubt. Whatever the degree of consciousness of animals awaiting slaughter (sometimes for a whole hour) just divided by a door which, all regulations to the contrary, is far from always shut, whether they know or not that it is death which awaits them, any spectator accustomed to animals in their normal state has only to look at their eyes, as they stand waiting, to feel sure that they are in fear of something. Such then, in brief and in rough, are the conditions and methods of slaughter which still seem good to us. When the Admiralty Committee issued their report in 1904 they made the following recommendations:— (_a_) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, and pigs) without exception must be stunned or otherwise rendered unconscious before blood is drawn. (_b_) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so placed that they cannot see into the slaughter-house, and the doors of the latter must be kept closed while slaughtering is going on. (_c_) The drainage of the slaughter-house must be so arranged that no blood or other refuse can flow out within the sight or smell[4] of animals awaiting slaughter, and no such refuse shall be deposited in proximity to the waiting pens. (_d_) If more animals than one are being slaughtered in one slaughter-house at one time they must not be in view of each other. (_e_) None but licensed men shall be employed in or about slaughter-houses. What has been done to carry out these recommendations, the fruit of most thorough and laborious investigations carried out at a considerable expenditure of public money and presumably with some object, by men well qualified for their task? Just this much has been done. The recommendations have been adopted and are worked successfully by the Admiralty themselves, and they form the basis of certain clauses in the Local Government Board’s Voluntary Model Bye-laws, to which attention is only just beginning to be paid.