The "Union Stockyards" were never a pleasant place;
but now they were not only a collection of slaughter~
houses, but also the camping-place of an army of fifteen or
twenty thousand human beasts. All day long the blazing
midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of
abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded
into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed conta~
gion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad-tracks,
and huge blocks of dingy meat-factories, whose labyrinthine
passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them;
and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, and car-
loads of moist flesh, and rendering-vats and soap-caldrons,
glue-factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the
craters of hell -- there were also tons of garbage festering
in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung
out to dry, and dining-rooms littered with food and black
with flies, and toilet-rooms that were open sewers.

And then at night, when this throng poured out into
the streets to play -- fighting, gambling, drinking and
carousing, cursing and screaming, laughing and singing,
playing banjoes and dancing! They were worked in the
yards all the seven days of the week, and they had their
prize-fights and crap-games on Sunday nights as well; but
then around the corner one might see a bonfire blazing,
and an old, gray-headed Negress, lean and witchlike, her
hair flying wild and her eyes blazing, yelling and chanting
of the fires of perdition and the blood of the "Lamb,"
while men and women lay down upon the ground and
moaned and screamed in convulsions of terror and remorse.

Such were the stockyards during the strike; while the
unions watched in sullen despair, and the country clamored
like a greedy child for its food, and the packers went
grimly on their way. Each day they added new workers,
and could be more stern with the old ones -- could put
them on piece-work, and dismiss them if they did not keep
up the pace. Jurgis was now one of their agents in this
process; and he could feel the change day by day, like
the slow starting up of a huge machine. He had gotten
used to being a master of men; and because of the stifling

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