Question

\the jungle\ - upton sinclair
when upton sinclair published the jungle in 1906, he meant to open americas eyes to the plight of workers in the filthy, dangerous chicago stockyards. instead, popular outrage focused on the wider - reaching threat of spoiled meat. congress quickly passed the nations first legislation regulating the meat, food, and drug industries. sinclair, disappointed by his failure to provoke more sympathy for the overworked, underpaid workers, noted: \i aimed at the publics heart, and by accident, i hit it in the stomach\.
there was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage.... there would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped walked heavily and spit uncounted billions of consumption tuberculosis germs. there would be meat stored in great piles in rooms, and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. it was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. these rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers containers together.
what does sinclair describe in this passage, and what is his viewpoint on the subject?
what details in the passage let you know the meat in the sausage is unclean?
this is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one - there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit small piece of food. there was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. there were the butt - ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels.
according to sinclair, why are the waste barrels not cleaned more often?
what does sinclair mean when he writes that \a poisoned rat was a tidbit\?

Explanation:

Sinclair describes unsanitary conditions in the meat - packing industry. His viewpoint is critical of the industry's practices. Details like meat on dirty floors with germs, rats, and contaminated water show uncleanliness. Waste barrels aren't cleaned often due to the packers' rigid economy. "A poisoned rat was a tidbit" means there were worse things in the sausage than the rat.

Answer:

Sinclair describes unsanitary meat - packing conditions. His viewpoint is critical. Details: meat on dirty floors (with germs), rats, contaminated water. Waste barrels: packers' rigid economy. "A poisoned rat was a tidbit": worse things in sausage.