HOW IT STRIKES A NEW ZEALANDER.

Southern Cross, Volume 9, Issue 5, 4 May 1901, Page 6

HOW IT STRIKES A NEW ZEALANDER.

HANDLING FROZEN MEAT AT DURBAN. The food all round (writes our correspondent, E.G.E., from Durban) is repulsive to anyone not used to it by years of experience. I ' have visited all the best feeding houses in Durban, and in not one did I enjoy ray meal not because I was not hungry, but because the cookery is abominable and the food a full match for it. And there appears no help ' for it for some time to come, as everything is confusion and chaos from the time provisions arrive in South Africa until they are consumed. Just to give New Zealanders an idea, I will cite a case in point. A large vessel arrives and anchors out in the bay, and she has frozen meat. Out go four or five lighters, loaded with blacks, and as the sun is very hot, they wear next to no clothes, and the ship people want to get away, and as soon as the lighters are fast, out comes the meat, and in a short time the blacks all smell high, and perspiration streams down their legs upon the meat in the open lighters. Soon the lighters are full, and down go the blacks on top of the meat, lying, sitting, or lounging as best suits their fancy. When the lighters arrive alongside the wharf the blacks go to work again to put the beef or mutton on shore, and soon they are warm again, and the old thing again takes place. Then there is a gang of blacks on shore who load the beef or meat on a trolly, and blacks take it from them. After riding a mile or two ou‘ top of the meat to the cold storage, the blacks again paw it about or bug it to their perspiring bosoms, and in the chamber it goes through the same process. Then, when it is required for the shop, the blacks get it out of the chamber and place it on the bench, and if it is a quarter of beef they get a 6ft cross-cut saw and two of the darkies lean or sit on the meat to deep it steady while the other two scratch it into suitable pieees, ■when they take it into their arms and throw it on the waggon or lorry, usually drawn by mules or donkeys, and as the animals are in no hurry the darkies have a long and cold seat for some time, and on arrival at the shop the blacks again hog the meat to hang it in the shop, and when it is again wanted to take out for orders

the blacks again embrace our joint. The system of handling meat is bad enough in all conscience, but that of dealing with bread is simply abominable.