THE CHICAGO HORROR.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 133, 8 June 1906, Page 4

THE CHICAGO HORROR.

EXTRACTS FROM "THE JUNGLE" WITH COMMENTS. (By J. T. Paul, in Otago Daily Times.) Upton Sinclair, author of " Tho Jungle"—the man who has stirred the world, has dumbfounded the Beef Trust—who is he? He is best known to a limited circle as the author of "Manassas," an intensely interesting tale of the opening of the Civil War. In addition to this latest and bestknown work, ho has written "Prince Hagen," "King Midis"—wherein, said the Boston Times, "Music is made a language for the expression of emotion and the revelation of character"—and "The Journal of Arthur Stirling." This latter book has caused critics to go into raptures. Everything he writes is marked by simplicity and clearness. He feels and makes his readers feel. His clear-cut, incisive words are like rapier thrusts. Upton Sinclair is 27 years of age, clean shaven, alert, and strong. Ho is a declared militant; class-conscious Socialist. His writing is done in still woods. " Out in the New Jersey woods, in a little cabin he built with his own hands, far from the fads and fashions of the world, Sinclair writes." In some respects he resembles Jack London. Altogether he is a fascinating character. Some folk call him a genius. What we want to know just now is: does he speak the truth? Like a bolt from the blue came "The Jungle." The first chapter saw light serially in the "Appeal to Reason" on February 28, 1905. The editor, like all editors, praised the new serial. "It will stir the nation. It will be the 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' of the Socialists." As it appeared serially it attracted more and more attention. Men who had never read serial stories were reading " The Jungle." Authors wrote to Sinclair telling him ho would one day be surprised at the effect of "The Jungle." Many people knew not what to make of it. . They could hardly believe it true, but it carried the ring of truth. " The Jungle" could easily have been made into books. The story of Jurgis and his own simple, honest, Lithuanian people would have made an entrancing story. The disclosure of Beef Trnst scandal could well have stood on its own.

Packingtown, the last place but ono —hell—stands revealed as never before. To understand the power of the Beef Trust requires imagination, and?, readers of the Daily Times do not poi TO sess American imaginations. We have to remember that the trust "is a power greater than the Government, greater than the courts or judges, greater than Legislatures, superior to ane^T independent of all authority of State or nation. It affixes for its own profit the prices of the farmer of the West shall receive for his own cattle and hogs, and the prices the butcher of the East shall charge for his meat." _. I remember once seeing a cartoon which put the position well. The customer (Uncle Sam) is buying his meat at a shop. He gets the prices from the man in charge (the Beef,'Trust),--^mit in independent fashion. declares: — "Your prices are too high?;; I'll go to another shop." The other fellow is independent too, for the jplinching answer is: "I'm the other shop just at present." . , ; ■' . . ~ . To show that the visitor cannot; hope to see all Packington Sinclair, gives an idea of the size of the'mammoth concern :.— ;'■■!'■ _~•■• • There were 250 miles of track within the yards, their guide went-on to inform them. They brought about 10,000 head of cattle every day, and as many hogs, and half as many sheep —which meant some eight or ten million live _ pijeatures turned into food every year. One stood and watched, and little by little caught the drift or the tide as it set in the direction of the packing-houses-. There were groups of cattle being driven to the chutes, which were' roadways about 15ft wide, raised Jbigh above the pens. In these chutes the stream of animals was continuous!; £t was quite uncanny to watch them, pressing on! to their fate, all unsuspicious— r a very river of death. Our friends were not poetical, and the sight suggested to them no metaphors' of human destiny; /;they thought only of the wonderful efficiciency of it all. The chutes into which the pigs went climbing high up—to the very top of the.distant buildings; and Jobukaa explained that with refinement of cynicism they made the pigs literally, clean and dress themselves. They went up by the power of their own legs, and then their own I weight carried them back through all the processes necessary to make them into pork. ■ Sinclair takes the visitor through a maze of machinery, thousands of animals, and dozens of painted signs to show that this great place was where different brands of meat were made. . Jurgis (the hero) on his first tour thought all was well. Jokubas Szadwilas excited him by remarking that "they can't fool anyone that has worked here." Thus perplexed Jurgis asked, "Aren't the things (the many and wonderful brands of foods and fertilisers) all right?" "Taijukai!" Jokubas laughed. "Wait till you have been in.here a while. I wouldn't put a piece of their canned beef into my mouth to save my grandmother's soul from purgatory!" Of the myriad horrors of the. business here are a few extracts:—

One curious thing Jurgis had noticed the very first day in his profession of shoveller of guts, which was the sharp trick of the floor-bosses whenever there chanced to come a "slunk" calf. Any man who knows anything about butchering knows that the flesh of a cow that is about to calve, or has just calved, js not fit for food. A good many of these Q&.in§ evrey day to the packing-houses—ajid, ©f cpurse, if they had chosen, it would haye been an easy matter for the packers to keep them till they frere fit for food. But ior the saving of time arid fodder it was the law tpat cows of that sort came along with the others, and whoever noticed it would tell the boss, and the boss would start up 9, ggnyersation with the Government inspectpi', and the two would stroll away. So in a trice the carcass of the cow would be cleaned out, and the entrails have vanished; it was Jurgis's task to slide them into the trap, calves and all, and on the floor below they took out these "slunk" calves, and used even the skins of them.

Yet this .was a minor matter compared with what came after two or three weeks. Qn§ (Jay a man slipped and hint his leg, and fcji|jt afternoon. \vhen the last of the cattle hud been disposed of and the men were leaving, Jurgis was ordered to remain and do some special work which this injured man had usually done; and so for the fir«t time in his ijLfe Jurgis was the participant in a crime, ft was late almost dark, and the Government Inspectors had all gone, and there wore only a dozen or two of men on the §nn£- That daY they 3lad killed about 4000 cattle, and thesa cattle had come jn freight trams, from far States, and some ot them had got hurt. There were some with broken logs, and some with gored sides; there were some that had died, and from what cause no one could say; and they were all to be disposed or, here in darkness and silence. Downers" the men called them; and Anderson and C & . } m ] iX special elevator upon which they were i-aised to the killing-floor where the gang proceeded to handle them with au air of business-like nonchalance which said plainer than any words that it was a matter of every-day routine. U took a couple of hours to get them out of the way, and in the ond Jurgis saw them go into the chilling rooms with Jio rest of the meat, For this work he was paid double time, and understood full well what that' meant. Here, again, is an awful sidelight told in .Sinclair's realistic style: Murder it was that went on there upon the killing-floor, systematic, deliberate, and hideous murder—and there was no other word for it, and nothing else to be said about it. They were slaughtering men there, just as certainly as they were slaughtering cattle; they were grinding the bodiel and son s of them, and turning them into dollars and cents. Jurgis talked with some who worked in the sausage rooms and who told him how, now and then someone would lose a finger in the dangerous cutting machines and how when that happened they would stop the machine, but only for a mmute or «,; if they could not find the finger they would fot it go and call it sausage. And that wat grinding up men, as anyone will admit; yt »t it was not one bit more actually grinding them than the .system of'"speed-ing-up." A thousand devils with whips or white-hot irons could not have filled human creatures more full of terror, or goaded them to more agonised efforts than did the daily routine of the packing-houses, with spies and bosse* prowling here and there, nagging and yelling at men and women and children, cursing them, kicking them, batting them over the heads, sometimes spitting into their faces—whilu outside the starving thou-

sands struggled and fought : for a chance to take their places,, when at last they could hold out no lcmger, but fell in their tracks and dragged themselves home to die.

Commenting on Mr Sinclair's vivid volume, Mr A. E. Fletcher writes in the Clarion: — " This is an awful book;1 It is dedicated to tho working men'of America, who, if "they do not combine to put a stop to the horrors it reveals, will deserve all the suffering that competitive Capitalism can inflict upon them. Mr Sinclair.' may exaggerate —may sometimes, like Rembrandt;, put on colour with the paletto knife gather .than with the bruslv-r-b'ut if his pictures of the interiprs of the home's of the workers employed in the slaughter-houses of Chicago,-and his ..descriptions'of the methods of these poor devils' employers, are at all true to life and to fact, then tho. Packingtown quarter of the great city mustt< be a less desirable place to live in than Dante's Hell. The .chief characters of the story are the members of a,, Lithuanian family, of which one JuVgis, a sturdy peasant, was head. They had been well-to-do at one time, biit decided to sell all that they could part with, and try their fortune's, in the New World. Jurgis had heard of America, a. country where they, .said a man might earn three roubles a day. ' In that country, it was said, rich or poor, a man •was..free; he did not have to go into the1 'army; he did not have to pay out his/-' money to rascally officials—-he might do as he pleased, and count himself as good as* Any other man. So America was a place of which lovers : and young people dreamed. If one : could only manage to get the price of ; a passage he could .count his troubles lat an end.' Thei'fr were twelve of I them in the partyf—five adults, six ! children, and Oria, who was engaged 'to Jurgis, and was 'neither an adult nor a child, but a littje of both. After enduring all the agonies of a bad passage in the steerage of an Atlantic liner, they landed in America, and, being unable to speak a word of English, fell easy prey to all the official rascals on the look-out, in the ' land of the free,' for innocents from abroad. They were plundered of nearly every rouble they possessed by the time'they arrived at Chicagoy.iwhere they all had to herd together, in a single room in one of the worst-slums in the city. Jurgis was a stalwart, however, and was soon able to find work at the shambles, bub under conditions which would have broken thes heart of a weaker man. Other members of the family also got work of a sort, after a time. "One of them, an elderly woman, Elizabeth, obtained employment in the sausage factory; Douglas Jerrold said tnat all that is needed for the enjoyment of sausages at breakfast is confidence. Those who eat Chicago sausages must be very confiding souls." "Mr Sinclair's story is fearfully realistic. There is too much shadow in it; but it is to be feared that it is based upon horrible fact. Jurgis ultimately joins the Socialistic movement, which is the only hope for the Chicago workmen. Happily, the movement is spreading rapidly there, and the time may not be far distant when, under the sway of an- incorruptible municipality, an end.will be put to the corruption, the swindling, and the inhuman indifference of the bosses?1 of the city. If you want to be converted to vegetarianism you cannot do better than read Mr Sinclair's book. As you read his descriptions of some of the scenes in the slaughtering sheds, you fancy you can hear the pitiable moans of the cattle awaiting their doom, and the terrified squeals of the hogs as they are flung on to the fatal wheel a;ha whirled to the platform, where their throats are cut.