A letter about the public slaughterhouse, by Percy Swindells

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1879, a twelve-year-old boy describes to his elder brother a visit with their uncle, a town councillor, to the town’s new public slaughterhouse.

Kiln Street, Friday

Dear Horace,

You will be jealous, for Uncle Silas took me on Wednesday to see the new public slaughterhouse beside the cattle market, which the Council has built so that the butchers may no longer kill beasts in the yards behind their shops. Uncle says there were above forty such yards in the town, and that the blood used to run down the gutters of Bridge Street into the river.

The new place is all white glazed brick and running water, and the floors are washed down with a hose twice in every day. We were shown round by the meat inspector, Mr Gaukroger, a tall man in a long white coat who carries a knife and a little book. He told us that every carcass must pass under his eye before it leaves, and he showed me how a diseased lung is spotted like a speckled egg. On Tuesday he seized a whole cow from a farmer of Ribble Edge and had it burned in the furnace, and the farmer swore at him for an hour.

I own I did not care for the smell, and I could not eat my dinner. But Uncle says Mr Gaukroger has saved more lives than any doctor in the town, and I believe him.

Your affectionate brother,

Percy

(a) How often are the floors of the slaughterhouse washed down? (b) What did Mr Gaukroger do with the farmer’s cow on Tuesday? (c) What does the final paragraph suggest about Percy’s feelings about the visit?