Orwell was British. The use of 'to cut (a thing)' to mean 'to remove' comes from the American English vernacular. Though the lines are more blurred today, I sus

Orwell was British. The use of 'to cut (a thing)' to mean 'to remove' comes from the American English vernacular. Though the lines are more blurred today, I suspect at the time this was written it would have been extremely odd for Orwell to use that phrasing. In British English, there's really not a shorter way to put that!