ts. There was a long
line of hogs, with squeals and lifeblood ebbing away together; until at
last each started again, and vanished with a splash into a huge vat of
boiling water.

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was
porkmaking by machinery, porkmaking by applied mathematics. And yet
somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the
hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were
so very human in their protests--and so perfectly within their rights!
They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury,
as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded,
impersonal way, without a pretense of apology, without the homage of
a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering
machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime
committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and
of memory.

One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical,
without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog
squeal of the universe. Was it permitted to believe that there was
nowhere upon the earth, or above the earth, a heaven for hogs, where
they were requited for all this suffering? Each one of these hogs was
a separate creature. Some were white hogs, some were black; some were
brown, some were spotted; some were old, some young; some were long and
lean, some were monstrous. And each of them had an individuality of his
own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart's desire; each was full
of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And
trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a
black shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited in his pathway.
Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg.
Relentless, remorseless, it was; all his protests, his screams, were
nothing to it--it did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his
feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched
him gasp out his life. And now was one to believe that there was nowhere
a god of hogs, to whom this hog personality was precious, to whom these
hog squeals and agonies had a meaning? Who would take this hog into his
arms and comfort him, reward him for his work well done, and show him
the meaning of his sacrifice? Perhaps some glimpse of all this was in
the thoughts of