Butcher shop and abattoir workers, 1900 circa. (From Vie en St Henri Website.)Now, this past Christmas, I found myself putting together a Big Veggie Salad (with couscous and pineapple and mint and nuts and such) and a squash, bean and cabbage casserole – and that’s on top of the goose and the roast beef.
This is because my eldest son is a vegetarian, a die-hard vegetarian, and he has been thus since junior college, when a teacher showed his class a movie about a slaughterhouse.
I once glimpsed a tiny clip of a pig slaughterhouse, where a piglet was being kicked into pen and that nearly broke my heart, because the piglet reminded me of my Boston Terrier, Bullwinkle.
And I’ve been a vegetarian, off and on, but that is mostly for health. These days I try to eat organic meat, because of the hormones and antibiotics used in the production of pork and beef, and as for chicken, well, it’s mushier than ever.
But I have that luxury. Right now, anyway.
My grandmother was a daughter of a Master Butcher, Maitre Boucher, and family lore says her dowry, in 1900, was 40,000. (I find that a little hard to believe, as that’s the equivalent of a million or so today. The average well-off family made 1,500 a year back then.)
Nonetheless, butchers had clout in the 1900 period. In Richmond, Pope Brothers sold meat. I have many many of the invoices and yes, it was relatively cheap to buy, beef anyway. In 1900 the Nicholson paid for 106 pounds of beef (1/3 cow) 6.35; for 79 pounds of pork 4.35.
I discovered on the St Henri website that that area had abattoirs and therefore abattoir workers. I didn’t see any such workers on the 1911 Census pages I scanned.
I am wondering whether to put such a worker in Marion’s class. A part time worker. A student. You can see from the picture that particular industry employed boys.
Reading over the School reports from 1893 and 1916, it is evident that attendance at school was a big problem. Virtually every school inspector complains that the parents in his district don’t understand the importance of daily attendance.
That being said, in the 1916 report, J.C Sutherland, the Superintendent of Protestant Schools, claims that his schools in the cities and towns hold their own among schools across the Continent.
I have it on good authority that in the 1960′s, the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal was the top board in North American, with respect to results on exams, I guess that’s how it is measured.
Many of these students (my classmates) left the province however. Toronto benefitted most from this mass exodus.
So, if you don’t educate your citizens, you have a captive, cheap workforce, if you can find something for them to do..
