natural weakness
of the digestive powers, and the contracted volume of the stomach, and
allow the animals either to suck _ad libitum_, or give them, if brought
up at the pail or by hand, a larger quantity of milk than they can
digest. The idea of overloading the stomach never suggests itself to
their minds. They suppose that the more food the young creature
consumes, the sooner it will be fat, and they allow it no exercise
whatever, for fear it should denude its very bones of their flesh. Under
such circumstances, the stomach soon becomes deranged; its functions are
no longer capable of acting; the milk, subjected to the acid of the
stomach, coagulates, and forms a hardened mass of curd, when the muscles
become affected with spasms, and death frequently ensues.

853. THERE WAS NO SPECIES OF SLAUGHTERING practised in this country so
inhuman and disgraceful as that, till very lately, employed in killing
this poor animal; when, under the plea of making the flesh _white_, the
calf was bled day by day, till, when the final hour came, the animal was
unable to stand. This inhumanity is, we believe, now everywhere
abolished, and the calf is at once killed, and with the least amount of
pain; a sharp-pointed knife is run through the neck, severing all the
large veins and arteries up to the vertebrae. The skin is then taken off
to the knee, which is disjointed, and to the head, which is removed; it
is then reflected backwards, and the carcase having been opened and
dressed, is kept apart by stretchers, and the thin membrane, the caul,
extended over the organs left in the carcase, as the kidneys and
sweet-bread; some melted fat is then scattered suddenly over the whole
interior, giving that white and frosted appearance to the meat, that is
thought to add to its beauty; the whole is then hung up to cool and
harden.

854. THE MANNER OF CUTTING UP VEAL for the English market is to divide
the carcase into four quarters, with eleven ribs to each fore quarter;
which are again subdivided into joints as exemplified on the cut.

[Illustration: SIDE OF A CALF, SHOWING THE SEVERAL JOINTS.]

_Hind quarter_:--

1. The loin.
2. The chump, consisting of the rump
and hock-bone.
3. The fillet.
4. The hock, or hind knuckle.

_Fore quarter_:--

5. The shoulder.
6. The neck.
7. The breast.
8. The fore knuckle.

855. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF A MODERATELY-SIZED WELL-FED CALF, about eight
weeks old,