The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-03-16
FIVE HUNDRED AN HOUR.
Tho Marvellous Celebrity with which Hogs
Arc Killed In Chicago lacking Houses.

Tho Marvellous Celebrity with which Hogs
Arc Killed In Chicago Packing Houses.
A Chicago letter contains an in
teresting account of the methods of
operation in the big packing houses of
the Western metropolis. Says the
writer: We began where the hogs
were driven from the stock-yard pens
and followed them until they were cut
into pork, made into sausage or the
hams put into the smoke house. The
killing was not pleasant sight, but it
was wonderful one. The hogs were
driven into narrow pen, some fifty
at time. There half-grown boys
fasten clamp, resembling a handcuff,
about hind leg, hooked it to a chain
and man at the bench above them
touched lever. Thus the animal
was raised by machinery until the
snout was about waist-high. when
another lever threw it upon an incline
and it slid toward the sticker, who
stood, knife in hand, ready to sever the
jugular vein. AS the hog passed him
he, by quick turn, applied the knife
and the animal passed on to the scald-
ing vat, and the man killed the next
before the first had hardly passed
him. Thus a constant string of
hogs was passing continually.
Five hundred hogs an hour is
the average work for ten hours
each day of each of the two men who
officiate as executioners in this house.
1t is expert work, and the men receive
S. day for their work. From the
moment the hog is hoisted to the slide
it never stops until hung up thor
oughly cleaned. 1t is dead when it
reaches the scalding vat, and when
the procession begins to move in the
morning the machine is constantly
throwing hogs in and out with the
certainty of clock-work. AS they are
thlOWA Ouo VI Viz NdO iucu SCIdVCu
the bristles off and lay them carefully
by. Machinery then takes them up
and scrapes the hair off. At the end
of the cleaning table man stands
knife in hand, who must sever the head
with the exception of enough flesh to
hold it, with one blow. He strikes the
joint every time, and gets 1915 per
day for his work.
A man opposite HOSTS the hog off
the table to another slide and down it
goes in the long procession that never
halts until the hogs are finally dressed,
for the heads are fully severed while
moving by men who stand, knife in
hand, to do the work. The entrails are
taken out much in the same way. 1t is
many hundred feet from where the
animals 60 to the slaughter to the
cooling-out room, but they never stop
from the time they start until they
reach it. Not word is spoken by the
hundreds of men who take part in the
killing and dressing. Every man
knows what to do and does it without
orders. 1t is feature of the whole
establishment that there is no talking
in any of the departments The work
is so systematized that orders are not
necessary, and the business is so driving
that there is no time for frolic.
| The cattle are killed and dressed in
much the same way as the pork, except
that they are first shot and then hung
up by machinery and dressed. 1t takes
from three to five minutes from the
time an OK is shot until it is hung up,
cut in half. From 1000 to 1900 cat
tie are slaughtered every day.