THE AMERICAN COMMISSARIAT SCANDALS.

Evening Star, Issue 10931, 13 May 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE AMERICAN COMMISSARIAT SCANDALS.

They are a little more daring in their journalism in America than they are in - any other part of the world. It was owing to the exposure and fiex-co attacks of certain of the newspapers that inquiry was hold into what are now famous as the beef scandals in connection with the recent war. It was alleged, first by the papers, and then by General Miles, the_ Commander-in-chief, that the great meat-packing companies of Chicago had been gxxilty of foisting on to the Republic for the use of its soldiers thousands of tons of “ embalmed beef.” An investigation was ordered, and is still being held, and the newspapers are hunting up and bringing evidexxce. The ‘ New York Journal’ has published the story of a man named Thomas F. Dolan, once employed as sixperintendent of a killing gang of 500 men in the cattle sheds of Philip D. Armour, and the tale he tells is such that, if the facts be not strictly correct and supported by corroborative evidence, oxxe would think the paper ran much danger of a libel action from the millionaire’s firm. However, they take the risk. Dolaxx says; “ Whenever a beef got past the yard inspectors with a case of lumpy jaw and came into the slaughter-house, I was authorised to take the animal’s head, off, thus removing evidences of disease, and after casting the smitten portion into the tank, in which the refuse goes, to send the rest of the carcass on the way to market. No disease known in medical science has clutched as many victims and made them helpless invalids as tuberculosis. And yet in Mr Armour’s packing-lxouse in Chicago they are camiixxg it every day. Once in a while an inspector would get really interested in his work and incur the enmity of the packers. It was not his good fortune after that to last long. Here is a trick of saving condeixxned cattle. A beef, for instance, is condenuxed in the morning axxd hung up with the rest of the steers in the cooling rooms to stand until the next day. The tanks are then prepared for the reception of tlxe condemned cattle, which may be full of tuberculosis or other disease, and the evidence is so patent that their coxxdemnation nxust follow. A workman informs the inspector that the tanks are prepared for the reception of tlxe condenuxed cattle and that his presence is required to see the beef cast into a steam tank. Mr Inspector proceeds at oxxce to the place indicated, axxd the condemned cattle having been brought up to the tank room on trucks, are forthwith cast into the hissing steam boilers and disappear. That is to say they disappear as far as the inspector is concerned. He cranes his neck slightly, nods his head and walks away. But the condemxxed steer does not stay in the tank any longer than the lime required for his remains to drop through the boiler down to the floor below, where he is caught in a truck and hauled back again to the cutting floor. Tlxe bottom of the tank was opexx, and the steer passed through the aperture. I have witnessed this farce many times. I have seen the beef dropped into the vat, into which asteam pipe was exhausting with a great noise, so that the thud of the beef striking the truck below could not be heard, and in a short time I have witnessed the men bringing it back to be prepared for market. I have even marked beef with my knife so ns to distinguislx it, and watched it return to the point where it started, This trick was the great joke of the stockyards,” -