MORE JUNGLE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 30, 12 April 1907, Page 5

MORE JUNGLE.

THE COLD STORAGE HORROR. RESTAURANT REVELATIONS. New York, April 9. Some more startling revelations have been made in connection with the meat trade in America. This time it is not the slaughterhouse, but but the cold-storage plants that are reviled. By the use of chemicals 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 —in Chicago, were closed up, and in one case the Manager was arrested by the Police under instructions from the Inspector of Health. In these cases the bone of contention was the condemnation of 70,0001 bof 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 be 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. RUCTIONS IN RESTAURANTS.

City restaurants have also been inspected. 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 restaurant-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.