center.

Along one side of the room ran a narrow gallery, a few feet from the
floor; into which gallery the cattle were driven by men with goads which
gave them electric shocks. Once crowded in here, the creatures were
prisoned, each in a separate pen, by gates that shut, leaving them no
room to turn around; and while they stood bellowing and plunging, over
the top of the pen there leaned one of the "knockers," armed with a
sledge hammer, and watching for a chance to deal a blow. The room echoed
with the thuds in quick succession, and the stamping and kicking of the
steers. The instant the animal had fallen, the "knocker" passed on to
another; while a second man raised a lever, and the side of the pen was
raised, and the animal, still kicking and struggling, slid out to
the "killing bed." Here a man put shackles about one leg, and pressed
another lever, and the body was jerked up into the air. There were
fifteen or twenty such pens, and it was a matter of only a couple of
minutes to knock fifteen or twenty cattle and roll them out. Then once
more the gates were opened, and another lot rushed in; and so out of
each pen there rolled a steady stream of carcasses, which the men upon
the killing beds had to get out of the way.

The manner in which they did this was something to be seen and never
forgotten. They worked with furious intensity, literally upon the
run--at a pace with which there is nothing to be compared except a
football game. It was all highly specialized labor, each man having his
task to do; generally this would consist of only two or three specific
cuts, and he would pass down the line of fifteen or twenty carcasses,
making these cuts upon each. First there came the "butcher," to bleed
them; this meant one swift stroke, so swift that you could not see
it--only the flash of the knife; and before you could realize it, the