ery, and then it fell to the second floor, passing on the
way through a wonderful machine with numerous scrapers,
which adjusted themselves to the size and shape of the
animal, and sent it out at the other end with nearly all of
its bristles removed. It was then again strung up by
machinery, and sent upon another trolley ride; this time
passing between two lines of men, who sat upon a raised
platform, each doing a certain single thing to the carcass
as it came to him. One scraped the outside of a leg;
another scraped the inside of the same leg. One with a
swift stroke cut the throat; another with two swift strokes
severed the head, which fell to the floor and vanished
through a hole. Another made a slit down the body; a
second opened the body wider; a third with a saw cut the
breast-bone; a fourth loosened the entrails; a fifth pulled
them out -- and they also slid through a hole in the floor.
There were men to scrape each side and men to scrape the
back; there were men to clean the carcass inside, to trim
it and wash it. Looking down this room, one saw, creep~
ing slowly, a line of dangling hogs a hundred yards in
length; and for every yard there was a man, working as
if a demon were after him. At the end of this hog's prog~
ress every inch of the carcass had been gone over several
times; and then it was rolled into the chilling-room, where
it stayed for twenty-four hours, and where a stranger
might lose himself in a forest of freezing hogs.

Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to
pass a government inspector, who sat in the doorway and
felt of the glands in the neck for tuberculosis. This
government inspector did not have the manner of a man
who was worked to death; he was apparently not haunted
by a fear that the hog might get by him before he had
finished his testing. If you were a sociable person, he was
quite willing to enter into conversation with you, and
to explain to you the deadly nature of the ptomaines which
are found in tubercular pork; and while he was talking
with you you could hardly be so ungrateful as to no~
tice that a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched.
This inspector wore an imposing silver badge, and he

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