AUCKLAND STEMS.

NZ Truth, Issue 60, 18 August 1906, Page 4

AUCKLAND STEMS.

CHICAGO OUTROTTED.

Horrifying Disclosures.

Filthy Food Colonially Conceived.

Pigs Fed on Putrid florses and Dogs.

Whea recent revelations brought to light the fact that the Chicago meatpackers m their anxiety to give full weight or preserve the flavor, or something, were m the habit of dispensing minced man and real rat with their foodstuff, people hereabouts experienced a squamish sensation inside and swore off canned Yank evermore.

Certain cases m the Auckland court, within the past few days, however, have made Northerners wonder if it hadn't better swear ofi food altogether and live on air diet. The prosecutions, which have taken place one after another m. alarming sequence, of well-known Auckland firm's for purveying filth as food reveal a startling: state of affairs. A9 Shakespeare hath it, "When sorrows come they come not m single spies but m battalions" and so has jt been with these exposures of. the sordid methods of food : purveyors m the Queen City. Aucklanders have been dumbfounded to read within the past fortnight that the large, dairying firm of Ambury and English, one of the largest suppliers of milk and buttet m Auckland, was charged with breaches of the Dairy Industry Act.

Prosecuting counsel m the case said that inspectors found the milk cooler, receiver and strainer m a filthy condition. When the strainer was removed from the top of the cooler there was found underneath a thick coating of matter resembling yellow soap, from which came a very foul smell. The strainer itself was thickh coated with old milk like paste and absolutely rotten.

A cow belonging to one defendant, named McQuiod, jn another case, was neglected. The udder was not washed and the teats not cleaned before being milked, while the hands of one milker were so filthy that they couid be scraped with a knife, also milk cans were discovered which were reekwith filth and smelt horribly. j . After this Auckland ntook its milk and butter with a w<ry face for s» day or two attd. changing the milkman became the custom ; but the next shock came when another pig dairy firm, James Wood asd George E. Tansley were charged with similarly working their business of milk purveying under filthy conditions, Auckland rose on its hind legs and said a few things anent milkmen m general and these culprits ,m par-

The milk had hardly gone off jfche boil before the neglected Northern town was again agitated with news that a man named Robert Furness, of Port-street, had been fined for having rotten fruit and pulp on his premises which he had proposed, if the health officer had not interfered, to convert into jam. The public did not say jam but another word that rhymes with, it, at this latest filthy food fraud. Furnyss of coinrse told the magistrate that it was the only occasion he had had such stuff on his premises and the magistrate, ..-of, course, metaphorically termed him a dandelion. Auckland crossed jam off the menu and waited for the next shock,

She hadn't to wait long, lor on Saturday pork was off, very much off. The why and wherefore of this thusness was. explained by visits paid to the police court on Friday afternoon by a trio of purveyors of pu* trid pigs. These gentry possibly) have some idea, of nuafifying impositions m Packingtown later ou* and their credentials should be of such a description as to as^urs their success. One Armour m embryo, named J. R. Martin, stood charged' with feeding pigs on unboiled offal, also with having 19 swine on his premises unfit for human consumption. Martin comes from the > Western Springs. He pleaded not" guilty, but had not a hope when the "result of the inspector's inspection of lii^ premises, was laid bare and he was fined '£so on. the first charge and £1Q on the second. Prosecuting ' counsel Mays told the amazed court how the Western Springs pork-raisers worked on Chicago principles. Two inspectors, on July 26 last, .-visited Martin's farm and found scattered about, the ground three or four, carcases •[ horses, the flesh of which "was m some cases wholly, others . partially, " consumed by pigs.' One cafo«.se which appeared to have- been eausumed the previous week still showed red traces of blood and' halfgnawed strips of flesh and sinew hanging from the bones. Further a^ wav lay the carcase of a dend dog which the pigs had just, begun to open, and from which the entrails were protuding. The health officer, subsequently found, m a feeding . pit the gnawed remains of a dead pijr and lastly p. piece of raw oftal Jrotii a horse was discovered, which wa-s preserved and shown to the m.ijusitrate.

Doctor Prengley, Health Officer, dftposed to visiting Martin's farm on the. day on question. He noticed the Cfircases^ of two horses m a feeding pit, and m them could find no intestines.. He also found a piece of raw gut which had been gnawed by the piks. It was quite fresh. Went to the boiler and asked Martin if * there were any guts m it. Stirred the contents with a long stick but could find none. Discovered a portion of a dead pig m the feeding pit. There was very little of it left. Came across another horse —a mere skeleton— then another pig also partly eaten away. In the sly was aheap of filth and, witness discovered, m the heap were hprse skeletons. In another part of the ground he took photographs of what he saw. The portions of gut eaten must have contained fceces.

Another inspector said pi^s had torn the skin off the stomach o! a dog's carcase found, and had commenced to disembowel it.

After malodorous Martin had been fined another

PUTRID PIG PimVEYOn from Penrose,* named Norman Austin, til years old, occupied the penitent form. Austin was described; as belonging to a family ci pig fanners.

ftnd carried on business for himself. Stpck Inspector Hull said he visilpd Austin's place on August 3 and * jaw the carcases of one horse and £ight calves lying about. The place was rotten, from end to end. One hideous mass of filth and putrefaction. The stench and reek .were unndescribable. The pigs had been systematically- fed on uncooked carcases. Doctor Frengley sa id the pigs were unno for human consumption owing to being fed not only, on raw meat but putrid flesh. The evidence of 'Joseph Lyons, veterinary surgeon, showed that diseases •that pigs could contract from eating raw offal were TUBERCULOSIS, CANCER 'AND BLOOD POISONING. 2t was necessary to boil offal to kill the bacilli of these diseases, if this was not done pjgs must contract disease.

Austin, was fined £30 for feeding pigs on uncooked meat and offal, and £5 for keeping p,igs unfit for human consumption.

A third pig purveyor, Daniel Neilson, of Onehunga, was charged with feeding pigs on uncooked . • meat and "blowing" or "spouting" two carcases of veal. As there was only one .piece of raw offal to be seen heescap-jt-d with lines of £5 and costs and £1 j,nd costs.

The above might be a chapter from Sinclair's "The Jungle" ; indeed, we loubt whether there is a passage m lhat much-boomed hook on '^Chicago itrocities equalling the horrors ; disclosed heire m Auckland.

The' above details $rere" : 'sworh to m 'Auckland Police Court, by public men, of what has actually occurred within a few miles of the Qu«en City, and' even the Retails conneoted wtii i&he"' disappearance of men into laift vats is hardly : mpre horrible. Of the two options, cannibalistic as it may seem, we -• would ' prefer, to eat good whole-' some ifeshly billed man to fetid, robltenrhor.se and dog-entrail-fed pork. fFhis occurred within this present month m this year of grace m, bur ovvii colony ; yet we dare swear it .will cause not one whit the sensation Ifchafc the revelations, m connection "with what occurred thousands of miles away m far oC Chicago, several years' apo. caused. Yet it may well be askefl how muoh Wellington, dr Christcliurch or Dunedin pork is to-day bejng cultivated on nuteitious an^jprocuieiifoom thei^uts of putrid houses; or decomposing ddogs or rotting fellow'pigs.f3/The Jumgle discover-, ed Hh* our- midsir^houldl; make other heidtb officers follow Auckland's lead and examine the putrid pig producing "'pastures" m their districts. But what must be thought of the fac^. that "Stipendiary Magistrate Dyer; who, the Week previous, sent a poor devil' to gaol tbr two months without • the option, for selling property valued at the paltry sum of 9s Bd, to his ' employer,' had so "much cpmpassion foSr ' these publicjpo'isbners per' pie that he actually alJowea time ior payment of the fines. It.ri'is to be; that magistrates Bealmp witn 'iiny. such nefarious farm*rs 4n. future .^iU send them up for a pood" long term v without troubling about fines at all. Meantime y pig -;lp i •♦off" m Auckland.