The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1887, page 219 by Various Authors
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comes out as red as a lobster; let the water be too cool, or keep the animal in it too short a time, and the labor of scraping is trebled. Into the hot water the hogs are soused at intervals of twenty seconds, and the Scalder stands, watching the clock, and occasionally trying the temperature of the water with his finger, or the adherence of the hair on the creature first to be handled. "Number One," he says, at length. By a machine for the purpose, Number One is turned over upon a long, declining table, where he lies smoking. At the same instant two men pull out his valuable bristles and put them in a barrel, and two other men scrape one side of him with scrapers. In a few seconds, these turn him over and pass him on to two other scrapers, who scrape the other side, and then slide him along to four other men, who trim and finish him, leaving not a hair upon his soft and quivering body. Then he falls into the hands of two "gamble-men," who insert a stick to keep the hind legs apart, and, by the aid of a machine, hang him up with his head downward. Next, the animal is consigned to the great artist of all, who performs upon him the operation so much in favor among the nobility of Japan. This artist, we regret to say, but will not conceal from a too fastidious public, is called "the Gutter." One long, swift cut down the whole length of the body,--two or three rapid, in-and-out cuts in the inside,--and the entire respiratory and digestive apparatus lies smoking upon a table, under the hands of men who are removing from it the material for lard. This operation, here performed in twenty seconds, and which is frequently done by the same man fifteen hundred times a day, takes an ordinary butcher ten minutes. This man earns six dollars and a half a day, while no one else receives more than four; and if he is absent from his post, his substitute, who has seen the thing done for years, can only perform it one fifth as fast, and the day's work of the house is reduced to one fifth of its ordinary production.