Juan carlos ghiano referencia general de la epoca

"The Slaughterhouse" takes place in the city of Buenos Aires during Lent, a time when the Catholic religion mandates fasting and abstinence, especially from meat. In this context, a great storm arrives that overflows the Río de la Plata. This flood causes a shortage of steers in the city. Buenos Aires is governed by the Restorer. His political followers, the federalists, blame his opponents, the Unitarians, for the deluge and the shortage of meat. Food is becoming brutally expensive and there are fewer and fewer possibilities of getting food to survive in the middle of Lent. The situation worsens and a great famine occurs, which generates many deaths in the city.

As a result of this situation, the Restorer orders fifty steers to be sent to the slaughterhouse. The first cow they slaughter is complete for the Restorer, as a way of thanking him for his generosity. Even so, a grotesque atmosphere begins to be created by the fights between people who want to take their ration of meat. It is the Judge of the slaughterhouse who must impose an order on repeated occasions so that the persons are controlled. When only one steer remains, there is an argument between the butchers about the animal. Some claim that it is actually an old bull. In the middle of the exchange of opinions, the steer breaks free from the noose that binds it and in its race decapitates a child. After chasing him for several blocks, they manage to catch him again and take him to the slaughterhouse.

Once the bull has been slaughtered, a butcher sees a well-dressed boy with a short beard pass by, a clear symbol that he is a Unitarian. Harangued by the people, Matasiete pulls him off his horse, puts the knife to his throat and threatens to slit his throat. Before this happens, the Judge intervenes, who rescues him and takes him inside the slaughterhouse to submit him to an exhaustive interrogation. In the interrogation of the young Unitarian there is no lack of great humiliations, for example, trying to strip him naked in order to whip him. The young Unitarian explodes with rage and a torrent of blood gushes from his mouth and nose.