The lowest of these outcasts, known as Eta, meaning "abundance of filth", could be killed with impunity by members of the Samurai if they had committed a crime. As recently as the mid-19th Century a magistrate is recorded as declaring that "an Eta is worth one seventh of an ordinary person". Though generally considered offensive, the term Eta is still in use today. One of the letters received at the abattoir expresses sympathy for the animals being killed "as they're being killed by Eta