THE CHICAGO DISCLOSURES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13225, 10 July 1906, Page 6

THE CHICAGO DISCLOSURES.

FURTHER DETAILS' BY MAIL.

A TALE OF HORRORS.

Uxdkb (hie New York, June 1, the following further details of the Chicago tinned meat horrors have reached us by wail: —

The whole country is deeply stirred over the horrors of 'Chicago and the great Chicago meat establishments recent!? revealed. .--.:>■■; ■■■~■.'■...' ' :j ; " -

It, is now known, that Mr. Roosevelt for months.past has been quietly investigating matters on. hi* own account, and has received such shocking reports that he is determined to put an end to the existing conditions. .' • •-.<,•

It should be remembered that every variety of tinned and potted meat comes from the trust's yawls, and it is in these that the greatest contamination can be most easily concealed.

FEWER ORDERS FROM ENGLAND. The newspapers are devoting columns to the packing-house . exposures, quoting copiously from the Jungle, and urging the public to beware of such Chicago dainties as potted chicken made of diseased veal, sausages made of unfit materials and treated with chemicals, and potted 'ham made of beef gullets and ground potato-skins, dyed led. These revelations are causing a great falling oil' in the. consumption of potted meats and other Chicago products, and _.it is reported that already » reduction of 33 per cent, in orders from Germany and England, two of the largest foreign consumers, has occurred. \ ; - Almost "incredible stories of "the horrors of fie packing-houses are related by Mr. and Mrs. Bloor, who made a preliminary investigation for Mr. Sinclair, and whose experiences form part, of his story. They resided at Chicago for some time, associated with packing-house workers, and obtained astounding revelations. One man confessed that unborn calves were largely utilised in the potted meat departments, and that fiua.tifcities :of chickens, so decomposed as almost to be dropping apart, were frozen solid, deodorised, and tinned. FARCICAL INSPECTION. Investigation has disclosed the fact tliafc the conditions• of the .meat-packing houses in New York .and other large cities are fully as bad, as in Chicago. The present 'inspection system is utterly inadequate and farcical. Six inspectors in New York examined 193,000 car-loads of packinghouse products hist year, in addition to several thousand live cattle daily. Over eleven million pounds of meat were condemned us diseased, or otherwise unfit during the recent investigation of the Chicago slaughter-houses. One of Mr. Roosevelt's commissioners witnessed the inspection 'of 31 diseased, cattle having large lumps on the jaws. Only seven were rejected. ' In Omaha, one of the largest meatcentres of the West, there lias been no inspection at all for over 10 years. " UNSPEAKABLY HORRIBLE." , The secretary of the New York Butchers' Association, in an interview tonlay, declares that the conditions. of. the New York sausage factories are- unspeakably horrible. Many places have no . sewer connections, and keep huge cesspools. Silled Avtth reeking, decomposing matter. In one •establishment rats swarm over the tables 'on which'the meats , are thrown for grinding,' and no attempt is made to remove the filth which collects. —-If a, -dozen rats are caught in the machinery, they .are ground up with the rest. • "'Large quantities of refuse, brought from . hotels and restaurants, -are mixed with sausage-meat. Not a. single sausage-, maker thinks of eating his own sausages." Mr. Thumafi Dobrn, formerly killing superintendent of one of the largest Chicago packing-houses, says that thousands of cattle pass inspection suffering from tuberculosis, gangrene, and other diseases. Animals unfit for cats' meat are boiled down and the nutriment used for soups and beef extracts, while the dry, worthless pulp remaining -is mixed -with gelatine, tinned, and advertised as jellied beef. Diseased meat, condemned -the inspectors, is systematically smuggled back and tinned. CHOPPED SAUSAGE-MEAT AND \ FROZEN PIGS. '•'Tie chic?'danger to the British public ..lies .in the use by certain . sausagemakers of the American chopped sausagemeat. as to: the composition of which no • one knows anything, and in -the sale of bcuctl meat, ■of which, the.- consumption is very large ill- the North .of-:.England, and carcase's of pigs in such a hard frozen stale asjiot. t.o>'admit of proper inspection here," writes-a. London meat trade expert. He adds: _ - . V , r ' By far the Create);'part',. of the American meat comes into .this country, in the form of quarters of beef, '.which las a rule are entirely free from evidence of disease; but' (of late years there has been an increasing trade in" sausage-meat chopped and put up in tins, and various goods packed in boxes, which is not so satisfactory. . These consist of 'sheep's and lambs' plucks, ox liver.*, ox and pigs' kidneys, loins of pork, pork cuttings which profess to be the trimmings of hams and ''sides of bacon, and, worst of all, quarters of beef with the bones taken out-. All. of these are put into boxes soft, frozen up hard, and sent here in a- condition which precludes the. possibility of inspection, so that the only guarantee of their soundness.is an adhesive label of the American department of meat inspection stuck'on the outside' of the box, and capable of being transferred front one' box to another. ~A - similar label js tied on the,, carcases of pork, which,., are sent here frozen hardVery recently a meat- inspector was desirous of showing ail official of the Local Government Board how utterly impossible it was to form any opinion as to the soundness ■'of these, and took him into the simp of one of the large importing firms for that purpose. There, lie found one carcase which, having hung from the previous day, had thawed and become soft. This, though still .carrying the American label of inspection, was obviously badly diseased. -. i,' ■ ' • . -' Then, as to the. boned beef. ; The Royal Commission on Tuberculosis made among others this recommendation, "In the case of foreign dead meat seizure shall ensue in every , case where the pleura has beep 'stripped."' WOLE TRUTH IrP ÜBLIS HAB fdi. The New York correspondent of the Loudon Time's, writing nil May 28, says :The revelations'now being made will, it is certain, result in legislation, and it is to l>e confidently hoped, in the punishment of the blackguards who have been accumulating great'fortunes by selling unwholesome food To llio American people. So far as the newspapers are concerned, the half has. not been told, and I am in a- position to" say that 'the whole truth can never be fold in print, for the reason that it would transcend the bounds of decency. But what we have learned already is enough. 'J lie New York Times this morning devotes an entire page to the subject. We read of carcases of hogs which 'had died from cholera made into lard, and into giease, which is used in making sardine oil : of hams in a put-re-lied condition injected with chemicals which made them odourless; of the- use of other chemicals for dyeing Ijad meal; of potted "hum" made from mouldy portions of smoked beef; of tinned beef from cattle which' died from disease; of mutton which is really goats' flesh; of sausages manufactured from scrapings .of floors liberally treated with embalming chemicals; of inspectors passing as fit for food animals affected with tuberculosis; of operatives being caught in machinery and mutilated, and of the machinery not even being stopped, so that human flesh is mixed in the canned food and sausages. • 'These allegations are supported .by/documents, supplied by Mr. Upton Sinclair. I have taken a few in- j stances of what has been going on absolutely at random. In the newspaper reports the great packing houses are. all mentioned by name, and it .is asserted that the conditions are the same in practically every large establishment. Is it,surprising that Americans are more wrought up by these revelations than by any other scandal of. recent years? Europe, of course, is deeply interest eel ill the matter, on account of the enormous quantities of food it receives from this country.