Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-02-25
Chicago'S PORK Corner.


We visited the stock Yards and found
the atmosphere thereabouts more smelly
than the sewery streets of Venice, Italy,
in July. Numerous men and boys,
mounted on small and large horses.
were riding about all a-spur in rancho
style. Passing through droves of pigs
and herds Of cattle, fenced Off on either
side. we entered Armour's slaughter
house, said to be the largest in the city.
Slaughter and blood indeed! We entered
with friend, who, hearing several
gun reports as VIC passed in and the fall
that followed each, desired to see the
cattle shot. Clambering in dark and
slippery room, we climbed filthy lad
der to planks above the cattle stalls.
The poor animals, seeming the blood of
their fellow victims, shrank with all
the might of aroused instinct from the
slaughter, but were goaded on with
cruel hooks and spears to their inevi-
table doom. First crowded two abreast
into long narrow passage leading from
the yard, they were forced with goads
two by two into the stalls that hankel
the passage, where the victims received
the fatal shot Just back of the horns,
and fell like lead!" IL few minutes
we were so si:kened we did not wait
the use of the rifle, but fastened down
the ladder to the bloody platform or
floor, empty when We passed in, but
now covered with row of eight or ten
beeves, opposite open and empty stalls
from which they had been hauled by
steam, with Threats cut from ear to ear
and being fayed, some of them appar-
emily still alive. What feeling came
over us as we stood for moment in
thai atmosphere flied with profanity
and the vspor Of warm flowing life and
saw that bloody work! 1t seemed to
us that an angel engaged as were those
men and boys, would be debased and
brutalized! We fastened away to
where it is no longer " root hog" but
"die T. Within the inner pen two men
were engaged in clasping one of the
hind legs of the pigs-with rope
attachmen.-the victims, vociferously
crying murder" as distinctly as posi-
BILE, were instantly raised by levers and
swung in to man, besmeared with
blood, who, thrusting his sticking"
knife into their sqnealing throats, at
the rate of five to ten minute, caused
their cry to cease. But their trouble
was not over, for they soon found them
selves in hot water" and after little
we're passed along to be " dressed" by
having their native habiliment removed.
finishing touch was given by gang of
men, who chiefly by steam, and their
hair being parted, by Boston time, turned
off five porkers a minute. The two
gangs engaged passed down ten a min
ute, giving "six thousand a day."
There appeared mechanical facilities for
double this number per day, half of the
apparatus being unnamed.
Following the overhead tracks along
which the dressed pigs were wheeled
with heels in air, we visited the store.
room with its thousands, the cooler, the
cutting and packing rooms and the can.
ming department from which goods are
shipped to all parts of the world. There
were received last year at the Union
Stock Yards, Chicago, million and a
quarter Of cattle, six and a half million
of hogs, three hundred and twenty-five
thousand sheep and over ten thousand
horses. 1t was Armour & Co. that
formed the corner" on pork last sea-
son. 1t is reported that they made two
million dollars and then lost three and
afterwards made more than both the
above sums Borax, in the Mass.
Ploughman.