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UGE, squat piles of rambling buildings of brick and stone, dull red or gray, smeared with soot, gloomy, forbidding, spreading over acres of ground like some great spider crouching for a spring; tall chimneys belching into the air rolling clouds of inky pollution that rise and spread over the surrounding country like some threatening portent of destruction; a never ceasing wail that ascends to the unheeding, smoke-blackened heavens, the cry of living beings condemned to speedy death; and rising from it all, enveloping all, spreading away from it in sickening breaths, the reek of corruption, a stench indescribable, vile, all-permeating, that wraps itself around one and clings to him, to his clothing, his hair, his skin. that creeps in through the pores and seems to become part of one's very being, sickening, nauseating, disgusting. Such is Packingtown externally. It is like a great sausage machine, into the hopper of which pours a steady stream of hoofed animals, and from the other side. of which issues dressed beaf, pork, mutton, canned meats and filth.

The stench is, to a certain extent, an inseparable part of the packing business. But not entirely so. For now there has arisen a new stench that has been wafted to the nostrils of the nations, and has sickened them, for the moment, of packing house products. It is the smell of corruption that has been stirred up by the "muck-raker", the breath from the filth that he has uncovered. Possibly part of it is imagined, but there is foundation enough in truth. Conditions in the great meat packing houses now are no worse than they have been for many years in the past. Indeed, since the exposure of the state of affairs prevailing, things have changed much for the better, and there is a ludicrous effort on the part of the packers to remedy some of the evils complained of, lest their business suffer. For years we have eaten the output of the packing house with relish, without any thought but that it was pure and

wholesome, and in all respects fit for human consumption. It is true that at the time of the Spanish-American war the "enbalmed beef" episode caused a temporary slackening in the consumption of packing house dressed meats, but this did not last long. The memory of the people is short. people is short. The present agitation, caused by a novelist who dared to tell what he had seen, and by a President who was not afraid to give to the world the results of investigations which he had ordered made, will probably be about as short-lived as are most of such movements. Yet permanent good will result. The old go-as-you-please days of the packing house are past. The packers know they no longer dare to disregard the ordinary decencies in their preparation of the world's food. Their short-sighted policy has reacted upon their heads, and through their misguided misguided efforts squeeze out of the people too many of the almighty dollars, they have lost millions in trade.

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The meat packing business, at least in its present proportions and volume of business transacted, is of comparatively recent growth. It is not so many years since the greater part of the meat consumed in this country was either raised and butchered by the consumers themselves, or was killed by the small retail butcher in his own slaughter house. Today about fifty per cent of the dressed meat sold in the United States, and all of that exported to foreign countries, is the output of the packing house. The volume of business done each year by the half dozen of the larger packing companies runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The number of animals that daily yield up their lives for the feeding of the people of the world runs into countless thousands. In the larger establishments, it is not unusual for as many as 5,000 hogs to be killed in a day. Often the figure runs up to twice that number. The slaughter of 3,000 cattle and 5,000 sheep on the killing floors of a single packing house is no extraordi

The magnitude of the business is demonstrated by the fact that the exports of meats and meat products from the United States during the eleven months ending with May of this year, according to the figures of the Department of Commerce and Labor, through its Bureau of Statistics, amounted to over $8,000,000. The value of the lard exportations alone, for the ten months ending with April, 1906, was $28,500,000. Fresh beef exportations amounted to practically $20,000,000, hams, $16,500,000, oleo oil and oleomargarine practically $20,000,000, salted · pork about $10,000,000. The value of canned beef exports was $6,750,000; of bacon practically $29,000,000.

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And just there is where the trouble, to a great extent, lies. It is the magnitude of the business that is responsible for many of the evils connected with it. In a small establishment it is easier to keep conditions healthful and sanitary. In the great packing houses, with their thousands of employees, their endless departments and uncounted rooms, easy to see how neglect and carelessness may prevail, even where there is no attempt to evade the law or the requirements of decency and health. Every man has his equation of irresponsibility, and in the class of men and women employed to do much of the work, it is a pretty big equation. Mistakes constantly occur, and many practices not openly permitted by the big operators are tacitly sanctioned. The one object is to make as much out of every animal killed as is possible.

The packing house industry is one of the most completely systematized in existence. The larger companies having establishments in several cities have one general superintendent, while each of the subordinate packing houses has a superintendent of its own. Under him are the heads of the various departments, such as the beef, hog and sheep killing floors, the lard department, the tank houses, the fertilizer, the sweet and dry salt pickle departments, etc. These men have under them their various foremen and straw-bosses. Each man is held

rigidly accountable for his department. His main object is to keep down expenses and make a showing of profits, and upon this alone does his value to the company depend. He is there to make money for the company. If he can't do it, there are other men who can-and they will very soon be given a chance to try what they can do. The packing companies are always on the lookout for men who can make or save money for them. The man who can find a means of cutting down the expenses of his department, or of making more out of the material used, stands in high favor, and his promotion is usually rapid.

This accounts in large part for many of the conditions that are so greatlyand justly-criticised. The men know that they must make a good showing in order to hold their positions, and that the better showing they make in the way of profits, the more certain they are of promotion. The result is obvious. Nothing must be allowed to go to waste, whether it be fit for human food or not. And nothing does go to waste. In the packing house nothing is lost but the squeal.

The charge has been made that animals condemned by the Government inspectors as diseased, and therefore unfit for human consumption, and ordered to be destroyed, are secretly used in the making of the various edible products of the packing house. Diseased animals that have been slaughtered are supposed to go only into fertilizer or soap grease or some such product not designed to be eaten. Some of the recent writers on the subject have charged that these orders are evaded, the carcasses being hidden and dressed at night. In some instances this charge may be justified, but the writer, who has spent several years in some of the bigger packing houses, is unable to substantiate it from his own experience. There are constant rumors about the packing house that such disposition is frequently made of diseased animals, but the writer has only seen them dumped into the sealed tanks used for the purpose. This is not to say positively that this is always done. It is only the experience of one man.

But there are indubitably many things done around a packing house which are

not prohibited by law, but which should be. Much of the beef killed, for instance, while not afflicted by any disease in particular, is not fit for food.

In some of the packing houses, particularly those of the more Western cities, there are killed thousands of "canners," as they are called-that is, cattle which are to be used for canning purposes. These cattle are generally old cows whose period of usefulness for other purposes has long passed, or cattle which have barely withstood the severe storms of the winter on some Western range, and have hardly enough life left in them to last them until they reach the packing house. To fatten these animals would be an expensive proceeding, even if, as is most usually the case, it were not an absolute impossibility. Often they reach the stockyards so weak that they are unable to stand, and it is not unusual for the killer to be obliged to knock an animal on the head while it is lying on the ground, because of its inability to stand up and be driven into the killing pen. In fact, the writer has seen. cattle that, if not actually dead, as they probably were, were at all events gasping their last, knocked in the head, shackled by the hind feet and swung over onto the killing floor to be dressed. They had not died of disease-simply of starvation and exhaustion. The quality of the meat can be imagined. Not very good portergood porterhouse steak, perhaps, but excellent potted chicken or corned beef. And what delicious potted veal they make.

One of the most remarkable sights of modern industry is the killing floor of a large packing house. It is a practical exemplification of the degree to which the labors of a large number of men can be systematized. There is no loss of time, no waste of energy. Each man has just one thing to do, and he devotes all his endeavors to doing it. A live steer can be transformed into dressed beef in a time so short that it would seem incredible to one who has not seen it done.

There is blood everywhere. The floors are slippery with it. It runs in little rivulets into drains, and flows in a steady stream into great tanks. The clothing of the workmen is stained with it. Their arms are bathed in it to the shoulders. It bespatters their faces; their sodden feet

slosh about in pools of blood. They look like the last terrible survivors of some desperate struggle-a resemblance which the huge cleavers and dangerous-looking knives in their crimsoned hands goes to complete.

The cattle, hurried in crowding thousands from the wide plains of the West or the farms of the Middle-West, are unloaded at the immense stockyards, where they go through a more or less careful inspection by the Government men. Such inspection can at best be but superficial, for an animal may have diseases which it is difficult or impossible to detect in any such wholesale inspection. After being purchased by the buyers for the packers, they are driven to the waiting pens of the packing house. As they are wanted, they are hurried in smaller bunches into smaller pens and then driven by much shouting and prodding into the killing boxes, just large enough to hold two animals each. Standing here not knowing what is to befall them, the round point of a long-handled hammer suddenly descends with crushing force upon the least resistant part of the skull, directly over the brain. The animal sinks gasping to its knees, mercifully unconscious as a rule; a door is raised, the bottom of the pen tilted up, and the steer rolls out onto the killing floor. Instantly it is shackled by the hind feet and raised from the floor head down. A butcher plunges a long knife into the throat, to let out the blood; the skin is stripped from the head and the head cut off. The chain by which the animal is hung up is attached to an overhead roller, working on the principle of an endless chain, and by this means the animal is kept moving down a long line of men, each of whom has some certain duty to perform. One drops the carcass to the floor and removes the hide, another takes out the entrails; another, again, draws the stripped carcass up to the moving roller. Here a man with a huge cleaver divides the carcass into halves. Each of these halves is then washed and afterward wiped with a more or less generally less clean cloth, after which the dressed halves are ready to be run back into the cooler to be frozen. The whole process has taken hardly more time than the describing of it.

Rather more gruesome, on account of

the more obstinate and vociferous nature of the animal, is the butchering of the hogs. The hog declines to be turned into pork without making a strenuous and noisy protest, and he voices his indignation with a fervor that makes the packer shed tears at the thought that the energy thus expended cannot be utilized and turned into money.

The pig sticker of a modern packing house might with appropriateness pose for a picture of Murder. Killing is his whole business, and he does it expertly, quickly, accurately, if bloodily. He appears as if engaged in a desperate, unceasing struggle for life. He is crimson with blood from head to foot. It spurts upon him at every death dealing blow. He stands in it ankle deep.

There is no wasted effort on his part. Each thrust of his arm with the keenedged knife clasped in the closed hand lets out the life of an animal. The pig is seized by two men and shackled by the hind feet, then swung up onto an endless chain that bears him down to where the killer stands. The latter seizes him by one front leg, there is a quick thrust, a blood-choked squeal, and the hog, a knife thrust through his throat and deep into his heart, passes on to give way to oņe of his fellows. So the long line passes, hour after hour, until thousands have been killed.

Each hog, as it passes from the hands of the killer, continues on on the endless chain to a long tank filled with boiling lye-water into which it is plunged and dragged through before the breath is fairly out of its body. This, of course, is to loosen the hair. Emerging from this tank, it is dropped into the scraper, a cunningly arranged device by means of which the greater part of the bristles are removed mechanically. Those that remain, about the feet, head and in rare spots on the body, are scraped off by a line of men with knives. Here again system rules. Each man has just one place to examine, and he is responsible for all the bristles being removed from that place.

One takes care of the right front foot or shoulder, another of the left; one man scrapes one side of the head, one the right side of the body, one the left side, and so on. One operator rips open the body and removes the viscera; an

other takes out the leaf, that part of the fat surrounding the kidneys, and which is regarded as the choicest and most valuable. When at the end of the line, the hog is stretched out on spanners he is cleaned and ready to be run into the coolers, if designed for fresh pork, or to go to the cutting room if he is to be cut up into hams, sides, etc.

The heads, viscera, etc., that have been removed are not wasted. There is a use for everything. The heads, guts, scraps of fat, go into one of the huge lard tanks, where the grease is tried out by steam heat under pressure. The hair is sold as hog hair, or, when it is of poor quality, goes into fertilizer, being rich in nitrogen-although the nitrogen in hog hair is not available, and is of little value as a fertilizing material. Still, it shows up in the chemical analysis, and raises the percentage of nitrogen, on which the price of the substance depends.

There are many people who think that lard is not fit for use. They would be more than ever convinced of this if they could see how it is made in the packing house. Not that the process in the lard refinery is not clean enough. On the contrary, the lard refinery is one of the cleanest places about the establishment. It has to be, for lard very easily takes on the odor of whatever surrounds it. But it is in the tank house that the trouble occurs. "Pure leaf lard" is very rarely made from "leaf fat." The fat from the leaf obtained in all the packing houses in the country would not make half the pure leaf lard manufactured by any one of them. Many other things go into it-the back fat, which is of very good quality, "killing fat," as it is called that is, the lard tried out from the head, scraps from about the neck, etc., and "gut" fat, which comes from about everything, including those portions of the body from which it takes its name. Some writers have charged that dead rats there are always thousands of rats about a packing house-are thrown into the lard tanks. So far as the writer's experience goes, there is little foundation for any such charge. It would be practically impossible to make any such use of them. Too many men would know of it, and such knowledge would be a dangerous thing to the packer, as the proof

of the charge would practically ruin his lard business.

tank.

There is a story in the packing houses, however, of a superintendent of past years who issued an order to his foreman to have all rats dumped into the tank, meaning, of course, the fertilizer Unfortunately, the written order was so worded as to mean the lard tank. This written order, so the story goes, was retained by the foreman to whom it was sent. He at once resigned and sent word to the company that he was ready to return to them the order for the sum of $10,000 and he got it.

The different grades of raw lard, that is, the lard as it comes from the tank houses, are mixed in the refinery according to the quality of the refined product which it is desired to make. In addition, a certain amount of beef stearin is added for the sake of making the product stand. up—that is, not melt at too low a temperature. The color and certain impurities are removed by mixing the lard in huge tanks with fillers earth and straining it through presses. After being refined, it is put into cans, ready for the market.

Most of the larger packing houses manufacture oleomargarine, and the factory where this product is made is generally one of the show places of the packing house. The packers pride themselves on the cleanliness of the process-and with right. Everything about this department shines with cleanliness. The floors are scrubbed until thev are white; the wooden tanks and vats are constantly washed, and streams of fresh water are everywhere in evidence. On account of the strenuous efforts of certain other interests, which for once showed themselves stronger than the packers, Congress some time ago enacted a law imposing a tax of 10 cents a pound on oleomargarine, which is colored to resemble butter. At the time this matter was before Congress, samples of the two products were shown to the committee which had the matter in charge, and so closely did the oleomargarine resemble the butter that the members of the committee were unable to tell one from the other by looks, taste or smell.

As to the justice of the tax, it is useless to talk now. But the fact remains

that oleomargarine, properly made, is in all respects as healthful as butter, and in many instances the process of manufacture admits of less criticism on the score of uncleanliness. Oleomargarine is made from oleo oil; that is, beef oil from which the stearin or harder constituents have been extracted by cold and pressure. To this oleo oil is added a percentage of butter, a certain amount of cream and milk, and some cotton-seed oil. There is noth ing, therefore, that goes into the better grades of oleomargarine that is in any sense deleterious to health. If all the packing house products were as pure and manufactured in as cleanly a manner,

there would be no ground for criticism.

But there are various grades of oleomargarine. Some of the cheaper grades are very different from the better grades.

Generally there is in the packing house a laundry in which are washed out the frocks, aprons and overalls worn by the laborers. There is, of course, a large amount of grease in these clothes. The clothes are first boiled out, and the grease, rising to the ton of the boiling vats, is skimmed off. This grease is used in some establishments as a constituent of the poorer grades of oleomargarine. And yet the packers claim, in reply to the charges made against them, that all their processes are perfectly clean and sanitary.

Lack of cleanliness is the worst fauit that can be found with meat packing house methods. The truth of the matter seems to be that the packers and their employees do not know the meaning of the word cleanliness. All their lives they have been accustomed to dirt and filth, and it conveys no feeling of repulsion to them. In some respects, parts of the packing houses are as clean as coul be desired. In other respects they are simply unspeakable. The latter is especially true as regards the habits of the laborers. From the very nature of their work, handling dirty and greasy produces and tools, their hands become covered with grease and filth. There are verv limited facilities for washing them, and the process of cleaning them generally consists in wiping them on a still more filthy rag or on their overalls or aprons, from which they get a renewed supply of ancient filth.

The use of preservatives in cured meats,