INTERVIEW WITH MR MOORE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 132, 7 June 1906, Page 2

INTERVIEW WITH MR MOORE.

SOME SHOCKING DISCLOSURES

At the conclusion of the meeting of the,-Hospital Trustees*. Mi: Moore, was. seen by^ a-.Tinie& represen,ta.tiv.e, and questioned further regarding;the grave charges he was bringing against the conduct of the meat business ;in. Wellington, and more particularly that reflecting "on the Inspection (or non-in-spect'ioriXof the'meat. .Mr" Moore, jvho has been connected with the meat business for twenty years as •' a wholesale and retail, butcher, manager of freezing works, buyer'of cattle, and exporter of meat-on his own;account, stated that the horrifying disclosures at Chicago had given him the cue he had long desired by arousing public interest in the meat question. .They had been assured by; Mr Gilruth,-Chief Veterinarian (in an ■ interview ■• in the Post) that in regard to the Chicago horrors he could assure the people that they, need have no fear of : such dition of things here. >>'■ '' The fact that we have at Micamar, Happy Valley, Ngaliauranga, Petone, Taita, and Porirua slaughter-houses in which cattle and sheep are regularly killed without any p pretence of inspection whatsoever,, and the'cattle slain in those premises are very rarely con- , domned, is evidence that infected meat is being regularly consumed by <•; the public of ..Wellington. The people here are. actuatedjby the same motives as tliQ meat; magnates, in, Ameiiica-rrf TO MAKE MONEY V out of the business, arid seeing th^at the rejection of diseased animals means loss to the trade, every device "is listed to> have- the animals passed^-diseased or otherwise. , ...■-. ■':■ ■-';.; "At present the Government pays one-third of the value of-air"'animal condemned by its inspectors, and the owner also gets the hide and; fat, which altogether, only aggregates about one-half the value of !a sound beast. This is. a serious 'loss r and must be averted by every possible means—and there are ways and means." . , , ... Mr Moore repeated that perhaps one I beast •in■ a: thousan d was condemned at private slaughter-hottses, whereas the proportion^ or diseased animals was perhaps six *oi; seven rpef rcent. " Out of one lot' he had had skilled Under/pfrbper supervision on April 27th, two' had been condemned out of thirty-six, and on March 19th five out of forty-eight —and Mr Moore is a buyer of Gained experience. If these-cattle:had been killed at' a private slaughter-house, Mr Moore stated, the chances were that not a single beast would have been condemned. .The effects'of such methods were, far-reaching, and were, in his opinion, the genesis of; the... '. . RAPID INCREASE OF CON- V '■<■■■ SUMPTION.

The terrible thing about the business was that this lack or slumming of inspection did not stop k as>. private slaughter-houses, but existed: .to '": a great extent in the big meat works. It was not generally, kn.o_wn that the meat companies paid the, salaries of resident Government inspectors;, they paid it into the Government, who "in turn paid the men. The inspectors knew this very well, and they felt that they were in the services or the company—which made a deal of difference to the severity of the inspections- He could produce evidence to show- that Mr Gilriith had condemned an animal after it had been passed as sound by the resident inspector.. There were cases in plenty where inspectors .have been known to accept bribes for passing cattle that- they knew should be condemned. STILL-BORN SAUSAGES. Mr Moore said that it is some time since he had to do with the inner workings of the factories, but'within ten years he had seen on several occasions the unborn calves taken from the" carcases of .dead, and sometimes diseased cattle, and used as sausage meat,. while their skins were sent away to be tanned and made into pretty waistcQats. ■ ■ ■.. ' . •/'■""•"' '* " .•." Talking' about pigs, he Remembered ■ on one occasion two client's (brothers) sending in a line of pigs to where there happened to be an honest inspector. The lot were pretty bad, and.the inspector condemned ruthlessly until one of -the owners, hearing how things were going, telegraphed for them to, stop killing. It was decided subsequently to allow the killing to proceed,, but those pig-fanners, never sent' any more animals to that place—-it was really ruinous! A large percentage of pigs were diseased. Could it be wondered at when most of them round Wellington were gorged on the putrefying refuse of the city ? The result of feeding them on muck affected their health. They became seedy, and gradually failed, and when about to die were killed—for the market. A pig that died was no good; but catch him alive, however far gone in disease he may be and kill mm, and then he will bleed—and is all right. If he was too poor in condition tor market, there were other uses for him—sausages and other small goods that a butcher makes up. » Farmers that bred and killed their own pigs, and brought them into town to be sold by auction or otherwise did without' inspection, and even those from big piggeries in the Wairarapa were not troubled with a post-mortem examination. - Mr Moore would have A ROYAL COMMISSION to inquire into the sources of supply of our meat. He states that;many pigs are fed round the slaughter-houses and in piggeries under conditions that are in themselves a menace to public helath. What should* be ascertained was the real extent to which disease did exist, and efforts should be made ' to stamp it out by strict regulation's governing the rearing and feeding of pigs in particular. The inspectors should be entirely untrammelled in their work; their salaries shoud not be drawn from the meat companies; and their work should be. supervised and checked by the department. It was only by stroffg measures such as sug- • gested that the corruption could be stamped out. But the producer should.

, not bo allowed to suffer by the effort to-obtain a pure meat supply—the public'should stand in with the Government in making good the loss occasioned to farmers by having cattle condemned as diseased. It was solely the fear of loss that led to the corruption that existed, and that must be deleted before they could hope for better things.' Mr Moore would have the books -of companies and slaugherhonses examined to see what really became on the condemned cattle, anyhow. A FRESH HORROR. 'On being! questioned whether there were any further disclosures ot a Chicagoan character, Mr Moore stated there was one tiling that .had.always disgusted him. When the hides ol cattle and the pelts of sheep1 were sent to the tannery, there were _ usually small pieces of fat adhering to them, called (in.the trade) "fleshings. One of the first duties at the tannery was to scrape the hides clean of flesh-in"-s " which were then sent to certain works in Wellington, treated chemically (by which means all impurities were . beached), and .sold as pure fat to Wellington biscuit-makers, llus was going' on to-day ! THE CITY COUNCIL TO BLAME. In. the opinion of Mr Moore, the City Council is greatly to blame tor the shocking state of the meat business in Wellington, in neglecting, against the advice of the Government, to provide municipal abattoirs, where, at least, there was a chance of genuine inspection away from corrupting influences. The Council had set up an Abattoirs Committee a long time ago—and had then got tired. He had thought it best to bring the matter before the Hospital Trustees, as a body that should be particularly interested, seeing that it has-had to provide new hospitals at Newtown and Otaki for consumptives, who would probably not have .contracted the disease had tlie disposal of diseased meat .been prevented as well as prohibited. It was much better and more economical for the Trustees and for the public generally to strike at the root of this frightful disease .'than by trying to combat the results of blind neglect. Writing in supplement to the above interview, Mr Moore says:—"l want ■ the Commission to discover where diseased cattle ancl hogs come from — whether it is improper feeding or breeding that is responsible, and what are the, best steps that can be. taken to stamp out disease from our.herds. A few years ago the tuberculin test was applied to' our, dairy herds, and much purging.of diseased animals resulted. Probably, this- treatment should be; applied to every beast m the colony, because it is obvious that the root of the evil should be attacked. The breeding' and feeding.of diseased 1 cattle and pigs b^ farmers who are, . perhaps, unconscious of "what the^: are doing, "is primarily'the trouble .that must be remedied. Tlie butcher who ' buys these diseased animals is unconscious of'their condition, and is loth to condemn his purchases when he finds n'pon-slaughtering that disease exists. 'Consequently lam asking tor an investigation of his . methods because it is wrong td allow him to let the public eat diseased meat. The ra- ■ tional'thirig to do is to attack the root of an evil, and that-is what I want the Commission for. . ■ . . . , "The sins of butchers are incidental results, because the authorities have • not done their duty in providing proper accommodation for slaughtering purposes, under veterinary inspection that is absolutely reliable. There is no need for undue haste or excitement in regard to remedying these matters. The Premier can be trusted to see a satisfactory condition iof things ■ brought about in a calm and rational manner." .

In his 1904 report, Mr Gilruth made the following significant statements: — "It is somewhat peculiar to note ;that, although from the export works from which a portion of Wellington s meat- supply is drawn, and where, orcourse, the stock is inspected .on slaughter, a considerable number of compensation claims are received with the utmost regularity, yet from the whole of the -private slaughter-houses in the district not a single claim has been received. Further, one inspector, who has been recently appointed to a newly-erected municipal abattoir, drew attention to the fact that, while he had been in" the district for two years, and had not been called upon to certify-to-a single claim for compensation, yet Ayithin the first month of inspection at the abattoir he had found it necessary to condemn several animals on account^ of disease." v

[PBESB ASSOCIATION.]