twenty cattle and roll them out. Then once more the
gates were opened, and another lot rushed in; and so out
of each pen there rolled a steady stream of carcasses,
which the men upon the killing-beds had to get out of the
way.

The manner in which they did this was something to be
seen and never forgotten. They worked with furious in~
tensity, literally upon the run -- at a pace with which
there is nothing to be compared except a football game.
It was all highly specialized labor, each man having his
task to do; generally this would consist of only two or three
specific cuts, and he would pass down the line of fifteen
or twenty carcasses, making these cuts upon each. First
there came the "butcher," to bleed them; this meant one
swift stroke, so swift that you could not see it -- only the
flash of the knife; and before you could realize it, the
man had darted on to the next line, and a stream of bright
red was pouring out upon the floor. This floor was half
an inch deep with blood, in spite of the best efforts of men
who kept shoveling it through holes; it must have made
the floor slippery, but no one could have guessed this by
watching the men at work.

The carcass hung for a few minutes to bleed; there was
no time lost, however, for there were several hanging in
each line, and one was always ready. It was let down to
the ground, and there came the "headsman," whose task
it was to sever the head, with two or three swift strokes.
Then came the "floorsman," to make the first cut in the
skin; and then another to finish ripping the skin down
the center; and then half a dozen more in swift succes~
sion, to finish the skinning. After they were through, the
carcass was again swung up; and while a man with a stick
examined the skin, to make sure that it had not been cut,
and another rolled it up and tumbled it through one of
the inevitable holes in the floor, the beef proceeded on its
journey. There were men to cut it, and men to split it,
and men to gut it and scrape it clean inside. There were
some with hose which threw jets of boiling water upon
it, and others who removed the feet and added the final

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