The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-10-30

there they bought UP all the. old rancid butter
| Lett over In the grocery stores Of a continent
and 'oxidized' It by forced afr process, to
take away the odor, rechurned 1t with skim
milk, and soid Il IN bricks IN the cities. Up
to year or two ago It had been the custom
to KIN horses IN the enthusiastically for fer
hh=er; but after long agitation the newspa-
pers had been able to make the public real
a1e that the horses were being canned. Now
II was against the Law to KIN horses in Pack
ingtown, and the law was really complied
with-for the present at any rate Any day,
however, one might sharp-horned and
shaggy-haired creatures running with the
sheep-and yet what Job You would have
to get the public to believe that good part
| OF what It buys for lamb and mutton is really
goats flesh"
| 1t Is in its description OF the proletariat and
the kind of labor to which It is driven, however,
that The Jungle is more significant The novel
describes the proetariat In action The work
OF the laborer is revealed in vivid and extensive
detail: g 1@9E
| ave sf
There we're the men in the pickle rooms.
for instance, where old Antanas had gotten
hts death; scarce one Of these that had not
some spot of horror on his person. Let a
man so much as scrape his finger pushing
| sore that would put him out of the world
| all the joints in his fingers might be eaten
| by the acid, one by one. OF the butchers
and noorsmen. the beef boners and trimmers,
and all those who used knives, you could
scarcely find person who had the use of his
thumb; time and time again the base Of it
had been slashed, till it was mere lump Of
flesh against which the man pressed the knife
to hold it The hands of these men would be
criss-crossed with cuts until yea could nosa
| longer pretend to count them or to trace
1 them They would have no nails-they had
worn them OF pulling hides; their knuches
were swollen so that their fingers spread
out like fan. There were men who worked
In the cooking rooms in the midst OF steam
and sickening odors by artificial light; in
these rooms the germs OF tuberculosis might
| live for two years, but the supply was renew
ed every hour. There were the beef luggers,
who carried two-hundredpound quarters into
the refrigerator cars; fearful kind OF work
that began at four O'Clock in the morning.
and that wore out the most powerful men
in few years There were those who work
ed in the chilling rooms, and whose special
disease was rheumatism; the time limit that
man could work in the chilling rooms was
said to be five years. There were the wool
pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even
sooner than the hands of the pickle men;
for the pelts of the sheep had TO be painted
with acid to loosen the wool and then the
FUCKERS had to pull out this wool with their
bare hands, till the acid Mad eaten their fin
/ gers off, There were those who made the
tins for the canned meat; and their hands,
| too, were maze Of cuts, and each cut rep
resented>a chance for blood poisoning. Some
worked at the stamping machines, and it was
very seldom that could work long there
at the pace that was set, and not give out
and forget himself. and have a part Of his
hand chopped off. There were the holsters
as they were called whose task 1t was to
press the lever which lifted the dead cattle
off the floor. They along upon a rafter,
peering down thru the damp and the steam;
and as old Durham's architects had not built
the killing room for the convenience OF the
holsters, at every few feet they would have
TO stoop under beam, say four feet above
the one they ran on; which got them into
the habit OF STOPPING. so that in a few years
they would be walking like chimpanzees
| Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer
men, and those who served in the cooking
rooms. These people could not be shown to