found that the custom of resting had suggested to some alert minds the
possibility of registering at more than one place and earning more than
one five dollars a day. When he caught a man at this he "fired" him,
but it chanced to be in a quiet corner, and the man tendered him a
ten-dollar bill and a wink, and he took them. Of course, before long
this custom spread, and Jurgis was soon making quite a good income from
it.

In the face of handicaps such as these the packers counted themselves
lucky if they could kill off the cattle that had been crippled in
transit and the hogs that had developed disease. Frequently, in the
course of a two or three days' trip, in hot weather and without water,
some hog would develop cholera, and die; and the rest would attack him
before he had ceased kicking, and when the car was opened there would be
nothing of him left but the bones. If all the hogs in this carload were
not killed at once, they would soon be down with the dread disease, and
there would be nothing to do but make them into lard. It was the same
with cattle that were gored and dying, or were limping with broken bones
stuck through their flesh--they must be killed, even if brokers and
buyers and superintendents had to take off their coats and help
drive and cut and skin them. And meantime, agents of the packers were
gathering gangs of Negroes in the country districts of the far South,
promising them five dollars a day and board, and being careful not to
mention there was a strike; already carloads of them were on the way,
with special rates from the railroads, and all traffic ordered out of
the way. Many towns and cities were taking advantage of the chance to
clear out their jails and workhouses--in Detroit the magistrates would
release every man who agreed to leave town within twenty-four hours,
and agents of the packers were in the courtrooms to ship them right. And
meantime trainloads of supplies were coming in for their accommodation,
including beer and whisky, so that they might not be tempted to go
outside. They hired thirty young girls in Cincinnati to "pack fruit,"
and when they arrived put them at work canning corned beef, and put cots
for them to sleep in a public hallway, through which the men passed. As
the gangs came in day and night, under the escort of squads of police,
they stowed away in unused workrooms and storerooms, and in the car
sheds, crowded so closely together that the cots touched. In some places