But let no one suppose that this superfluity of employees meant easier work for anyone! On the contrary, the speeding-up seemed to be growing more savage all the time; they were continually inventing new devices to crowd the work on⁠—it was for all the world like the thumbscrew of the medieval torture-chamber. They would get new pacemakers and pay them more; they would drive the men on with new machinery⁠—it was said that in the hog-killing rooms the speed at which the hogs moved was determined by clockwork, and that it was increased a little every day. In piecework they would reduce the time, requiring the same work in a shorter time, and paying the same wages; and then, after the workers had accustomed themselves to this new speed, they would reduce the rate of payment to correspond with the reduction in time! They had done this so often in the canning establishments that the girls were fairly desperate; their wages had gone down by a full third in the past two years, and a storm of discontent was brewing that was likely to break any day.