Workmen's advocate., 1890-04-19

margarine, the vile and filthy matter from grease tanks, and from dead and diseased animals, and called it oleo- margarine and butterine.
 What is the result of all this vile adulteration of this and other articles of food? Not only that few men may amass millions in their manufacture at the expense of the masses, but that we pay for an unhealthy and unpalatabe compound that is called butter, and yet it is not butter; we pay for pure refined lard,' and we get an adulteration of tallow, cotton seed oil, mud, oleo- stearine, entrails, the fatty parts of the hog and beef and white wax.
 For pure goods" we buy cans and buckets, machine made, with poisonous acids of the cheapest tin, enclosed in bright red labels on the exterior, but poisonous and death dealing in the in- terior. We have become a nation of dyspeptics, growing prematurely old, and crowding the insane asylums in nearly every State in the Union to over, flowing The institutes for the feeble minded and the aims houses are full, with an increase of epilepsy and paralysis as high as forty per cent in some States in the Union within the past decade. Who pays for the support of an army of imbeciles2 The people,
 If a wage-woman steals bucket of "pure family lard" she is arrested for larceny and incarcerated in prison. But | the manufacturer who steals from the "working womans' small pittance is allowed to go scott free
 The manufacturer who imposes pois onous, adulterated frauds upon un- suspecting women is protected by law to steal. And this is free country.
 Mir. George II. Webster, of the firm of Armour X Co.,, of Chicago, has stated before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representative, in 1888, that the "house of Armour X Go. sold during .ne yer more than 6O,000, ,0O0 pounds of refined lard.' Further on he says, "lts manufactu,, has resulted in its being a commercial and industrial necessity, opening up new channels for its compo- nents, which now benefits the producers of the South annually to the extent of $4, 900. 900 and the cattle interests of the West in the outlet for beef stearine nearly or quite $2 000,00 Again he says, "The article of refined lard Is not recent production. It has been upon the markets of the world for quarter of n century, and is annually exported to the extent of about 40 per cent. of it's manufacture.
 The total annual production of lard of all kinds in the United States approXi- mates 600,000,000 pounds, of which about one-h half is refined lard, wiz: 300,, COG, ,000 pounds, which shows the extent
 of it's manufacture. And again, mark
 you we'll what he says, legislators
 mothers, wives, house-keepers, and con
 sumers-- BOG, ,000,0 900 pounds of adulter ated lard
 Another important factor in connec
 ton with this measure demands oul
 serious consideration. Those who art
 not familiar with the burdensome work
 ings of the internal revenue system car
 hardly appreciate how formidable anc
 burdensome it would be when applied : to such a commercial product as refined lard, which is so widely distributed
 throughout America and Europe. Take as an example, the business of the firm of Armour X Co. alone. "We turned out last year from our packing house 1T Chicago 130,000 packages of oleo margarine. Each package has to b'
 entered in the government books, pre- pared for the purpose, with it's date ant number, its destination and it's purchaser These entries are separately transferred into two duplicate monthly reports . furnished by the Government througl } the collectors of Internal Revenue, al necessitating a very large increased clerical force. Brothers Powderly ant Gompers, what do you think of the 'in 5 creased clerical force to inspect a sub = stitute for lard, and three million fou
 hundred thousand unemployed men il
 the country to-day?
 Mr. Webster says: ''Please imagine tn
 the numerous details of the labor COZ
 nected with the laws requirements i Il this product magnified twenty times y and you can form some idea of tn y enormous burden that would be inflicte il upon our firm alone, for we distribute
 last year over 2,500 900 packages of re , fined lard. In order to meet the require 9 ments of the consumers and the trade, l. large proportion is put up in 3, 5 and n pound tins, all of which are prohibite n under this bill, and these packed in case " holding 60 pounds each. There are als large quantities put up i'll other tins an e wooden packages, ranging from 10 to 5
 pounds each, and all these small pacl # ages would require separate brands , stamps, and labels, and each individui II history separately recorded, compellin Il stupendous amount of labor an @ clerical work that is actually appallin d to contemplate" Poor fraud manufacturer Willial