The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-03
ILLINOIS.
Losses of Grain Dealers by a Shameful Sys-
tenn of Weighing at East st. Louis.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.

tenn of Weighing at East st. Louis.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal
SPRINGFIELD, May I'm the early days of
the present session of the Illinois Legisla
ture vigorous movement was begun for the
purpose of establishing State grain inspection
at East St. Louis for the protection OF the
grain producers of central and southern Hi
nois, and bill with that object in view was
introduced in the House, and adj
vanced as far as the order of second
reading, where it now lies, among
more than 200 others, with a strong
probability that it will never be reached for
final action.
This is one of the most important meas
ures of the session. and a great deal of curl
osity is being awakened to discover the cause
or causes for the sudden loss of interest in it
among Legislators. Next to Chicago,
East St. Louis is the most important grain
market in the State. A large number of rail
roads center there and the facilities for
handling grain are abundant, while the river
furnishes valuable means of competition in
the matter of freights. But the weighing and
inspection of grain at that point have been
Il
as market has been almost ruined. A
prominent grain dealer in southern Illinois
stated to a representative Of the indianapolis
Journal that he had practically been obliged
to abandon the handling of grain for that
point because of the losses in weights and
the degradation of the inspection. He stated
that for months he had failed to get single
&C Al. H.
without loss, though he had been ship
ping almost daily. He mentioned as an il
lustration the fact that in one instance he
had loaded two cars precisely alike, from
grain of the same grade, and shipped them
OIL the same day, the one to pass through
one of the elevators, the other to be delivered
from the car to private party and taken
away in wagons They were both unloaded
on the same day, but the former was re-
ported short seventy-nine bushels and the
latter only five bushels. He protested, and
sent in sworn statements, but could get no
relief. 'Latterly," he said, 81 have been I'M
able to get carload of wheat into East St
Louis without suffering loss of twenty
bushels at least"
ne SAINT ScIIieHldn SnOWeu a leIlef from
a Mr.. Henry Serth, miller and shipper of
Lenzburg st. Clair county, who states, as an
example, that on a certain day he shipped to
East ST. Louis a car containing 457 b;:shels
on which the shortage was 10 bushels Four
days later he shipped another of 500 which
was reported ID bushels short. Again, one
day later STILL he shipped car containing
ole Job A. al
short
These are samples of an endless number of
complaints the aggregate effect of which
is to render the East ST. Louis
market almost entirely valueless
to southern Illinois. The elevators
there are owned almost entirely by residents
OF st. Louis, and are under no other surveil-
lance than the Merchants Exchange of that
city chooses to place over them. Conse-
quently, citizens of this State are forced to
conform to the decisions of ali organization
in no way ameuable to the laws of Illinois,
and with sympathies and paramount bust
ness interests in another State
The gentleman to whom reference is made
above said 1.-The management of the East
St. Louis market IS scandalous in the eX-
IRENE, and all this is readily accounted
for when the loose manner of supervision Is
understood. 1t has been frequently
cha rged," he said, land so far as / know,
never refuted, that the so-called supervisors
frequently sign the required certificates of
inspection and weight in blank, and leave
them at the elevator to be flied out when
occasion may require A large number of
such certificates were placed in the hands of
a committee OF the present Legislature on the
occasion of its recent visit to East st. Louis"
He said if southern Illinois could have
system OF inspection at East ST. Louis as re-
liable and safe as that at Chicago it would
add more than 10 per cent. to the value OF
the crops in that part of the State. But he
expressed great doubts about the passage of
the bill providing for it, and suggested that
rigid inquiry into the means by which the
bill had been queted would be apt to disclose
some things that would not be altogether
creditable.