MORE JUNGLE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 54

MORE JUNGLE

THE COLD STORAGE HORROR. THE DEGRADATION OE SCIENCE. RESTAURANT REVELATIONS. Some more startling revelations have been made in connection with the meat trade in America. This time it is not the slaughterhouse, but the cold-storage plants that are reviled. By the use of chemicals (says “Good _ Health ) it is. reported, putrid flesh is converted into toothsome food. The tough meat of old hens is kept until it becomes putrid and tender; it is then chemically treated and sold for tender spring chicken. Americans are up in arms, and are determined to put a stop to this iniquitous trade. In one week the Health Department of the city of Chicago condemned and destroyed 84,892 pounds of unfit foodstuffs. Two of the largest cold storage plants—one a twelve story building of the American Cold Storage Company—m Chicago, were closed up, and in one case tne manager was ar»csted by the police under instructions from the inspector of health. In tiiese cases the contention was the condemnation of 70 0001bs of frozen poultry. Samples of the poultry were tested in the city laboratories, and they WERE PRONOUNCED PUTRID and dangerous to the lives of those who might consume them. Immediately the results of the examination were made known, (Secretary Pritchard ordered the poultry to Joe seized, and removed to the city destruction yards. The samples were in such a putrid condition that they had to be drenched with formalin before they could be handled at all. The same day the Health Department seized forty-eight barrels of decayed poultry in the cold stores of A. Booth and Co. (the largest cold storage plant proprietors in the United States), and they

were taken to the city destructors to be converted into fertiliser. At the same time officials of the Health Department learned that three cartloads, or more than 300,000 pounds, of cold storage poultry in a similar condition had been hastily shipped out of Chicago. One car was sent to Canada, and the other two to New York. SPRING CHICKEN. In another case of the condemnation of 24,000 pounds cf bad poultry, this lot of spring chicken was reported to have been stolen from under the noses of the vigilant health officers, according .to the inspectors. The poultry was passed as decayed, and fit for nothing short of soap, ffhd was held under condemnation at the storage plant. The storage plant proprietors protested that it was in good sqndition, and appealed to the Courts for an inj unction restraining the Health Department from seizing and destroying it. With the injunction, the storage people were also commanded not to remove it. However, during the night, the bad poultry—the odour of which could be smelled with ease —was spirited away, and newly-frozen poultry substituted in the c.videmned barrels. However, this deception was of no avail, as during the following day the bad poultry was discovered m the place to which it had been removed. In addition to the of poultry, many other articles, such as fifty barrels of oysters and 100,000 pounds of fish, have been seized inside of a few days. The fish had been in cold storage for over four years, and through neglect of the cold storage people had been allowed to spoil. The oysters had been only nine months in storage. RUCTIONS IN RESTAURANTS. City restaurants have also been ’nspeeted. Restaurants frequented , daily by thousands of men and women have been found to be in a filthy condition. The kitchen of one of the leading eating houses was said to be a “mass of moving vermin.” Cockroaches were found running over dishes of uncovered food, and rats were seen to scamper out from food receptacles. Over twenty restaur-ant-keepers have been cited to appear before the police for keeping dirty premises. In one case, the inspector of restaurants found that the vast majority of the saloon free-lunch counters were supplied by a cook-shop which had its" kitchen in an old disused stable, which had not even had the manure or dirty straw taken away from the floor. Not only was the kitchen in a filthy state, but all kinds of bad and putrid meats were being prepared into toothsome morsels for the frequenters of the city hotel lunch counters. DYED ICE CREAM. The supplies of ice cream ore also numbered among the bad and injurious food products. Samples from the Drexel Ice Cream Company, one of the largest makers in Chicago, showed that the flavours were artificial, and that they were coloured with coal tar dye. Warrants for the arrest of this company were issued. In the production of ice cream, a great amount of what is called desiccated and condensed egg powder is used, and this article has drawn the attention of the Health Department. In order to test the purity of this article, and its safe use by the public, inspectors paid a visit to the Chicago condensed egg powder plant, and they found that almost in the shadow of the county <mol hundreds of eggs are converted daily into what the dealers call condensed, form. So secretly is the business conducted, that many persons in the building at 196, Michigan street, have no suspicions. Food inspectors, working under Chief P. J. Murray, changed the form from “condensed,” so that it reads “condemned.”