Chicago Slaughterhouses

I had read a detailed description with illustrations back in 1886. I envisaged huge, well-lit and clean buildings with neatly dressed workers. But oh my God, what a difference! I saw some cattle that were entering the pen, raise their heads and on seeing hundreds of their kind killed, skinned and severed into pieces, were taken by such utter terror that they gazed open eyed and stood petrified; at this point the butcher would raise his hammer indifferently and fell the ox on the planks with a measured blow between the horns. They pierced the animal's neck with a knife and a stream of blood and filth gushed out onto the floor. Several machines cut the meat into pieces; numerous workers filled endless bowels on dirty wooden tables, then tied them with twine, loaded them onto carts and took them to the storerooms. Everywhere was dark and slimy with offal - and the stench!... I felt sick; had I stayed for five minutes longer, I would have succumbed and passed out.