gave an atmosphere of authority to the scene, and, as it
were, put the stamp of official approval upon the things
which were done in Durham's.

Jurgis went down the line with the rest of the visitors,
staring open-mouthed, lost in wonder. He had dressed
hogs himself in the forest of Lithuania; but he had never
expected to live to see one hog dressed by several hundred
men. It was like a wonderful poem to him, and he took it
all in guilelessly -- even to the conspicuous signs demand~
ing immaculate cleanliness of the employees. Jurgis was
vexed when the cynical Jokubas translated these signs
with sarcastic comments, offering to take them to the
secret-rooms where the spoiled meats went to be doctored.

The party descended to the next floor, where the various
waste materials were treated. Here came the entrails, to
be scraped and washed clean for sausage-casings; men
and women worked here in the midst of a sickening stench,
which caused the visitors to hasten by, gasping. To another
room came all the scraps to be "tanked," which meant
boiling and pumping off the grease to make soap and lard;
below they took out the refuse, and this, too, was a region
in which the visitors did not linger. In still other places
men were engaged in cutting up the carcasses that had
been through the chilling-rooms. First there were the
"splitters," the most expert workmen in the plant, who
earned as high as fifty cents an hour, and did not a thing
all day except chop hogs down the middle. Then there
were "cleaver men," great giants with muscles of iron;
each had two men to attend him -- to slide the half car~
cass in front of him on the table, and hold it while he
chopped it, and then turn each piece so that he might chop
it once more. His cleaver had a blade about two feet long,
and he never made but one cut; he made it so neatly, too,
that his implement did not smite through and dull itself --
there was just enough force for a perfect cut, and no
more. So through various yawning holes there slipped to
the floor below -- to one room hams, to another fore~
quarters, to another sides of pork. One might go down
to this floor and see the pickling-rooms, where the hams

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v?