the neck for tuberculosis. This government inspector did not have the
manner of a man who was worked to death; he was apparently not haunted
by a fear that the hog might get by him before he had finished his
testing. If you were a sociable person, he was quite willing to enter
into conversation with you, and to explain to you the deadly nature
of the ptomaines which are found in tubercular pork; and while he was
talking with you you could hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a
dozen carcasses were passing him untouched. This inspector wore a blue
uniform, with brass buttons, and he gave an atmosphere of authority to
the scene, and, as it were, put the stamp of official approval upon the
things which were done in Durham's.

Jurgis went down the line with the rest of the visitors, staring
openmouthed, lost in wonder. He had dressed hogs himself in the forest
of Lithuania; but he had never expected to live to see one hog dressed
by several hundred men. It was like a wonderful poem to him, and he
took it all in guilelessly--even to the conspicuous signs demanding
immaculate cleanliness of the employees. Jurgis was vexed when the
cynical Jokubas translated these signs with sarcastic comments, offering
to take them to the secret rooms where the spoiled meats went to be
doctored.

The party descended to the next floor, where the various waste materials
were treated. Here came the entrails, to be scraped and washed clean for
sausage casings; men and women worked here in the midst of a sickening
stench, which caused the visitors to hasten by, gasping. To another room
came all the scraps to be "tanked," which meant boiling and pumping off
the grease to make soap and lard; below they took out the refuse, and
this, too, was a region in which the visitors did not linger. In still
other places men were engaged in cutting up the carcasses that had been