The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-01-29

| The United States Supreme Court has
decided, in effect, that the State cannot
by indirect methods prohibit the sale of
meat slaughtered in other States. The
case came from Virginia, where a law
was made providing that meat slaugh-
tered more than 100 miles from the place
Of sale should not be sold until inspected
and fixing fee of one cent pound for
the inspecting. This law, while nomi-
nally a sanitary regulation, was of course
in fact prohibition of what is known as
Chicago dressed beef and was intended
for nothing else. A suit was brought to
test the cOnstitutionality of the statute
and the federal Circuit Court decided
against it, and this decision the Supreme
Court has Just affirmed. The words of
the court are interesting, and are re-
ported thus:
'The statue is, in effect, prohibition
upon the sale in Virginia of beef, veal or
mutton, although entirely wholesome, if
it be the product of animals slaughtered
100 miles or more from the place of sale.
1t is, in effect, a prohibition, because,
being required to pay the heavy charge
of one cent a pound for inspection.
persons outside the State cannot com,
pete upon equal terms in the markets of
Virginia with local traders, whose meats
do not have to be inspected. Undoubt-
edly state may establish regulations to
protect the people against the sale of
unwholesome meats, but it may not
under the guise of exerting its police
powers, or enacting inspecting laws,
make determinations against the pro-
ducts and industries of some of the
States in favor of the products and
industries of its own or other States. The
States under consideration, by reason
of the onerous nature of the tax imposed
in the name of compensation to the in
spectOr, goes far beyond the purposes
of legitimate inspection to determine the
quality and condition of meat from a
distance, and by its necessary operation
Obstructs the freedom of commerce
among the States. 1t is for all practical
ends statute to prevent the citizens of
distant States, having for sale fresh
meats, from coming into competition
upon terms of equality with local dealers,
and as such its repugnancy to the con-
stitution is manifest
Now, this is decision which any
level-headed man might reach without
technical knowledge of the law, but,
after all, the st ange thing is that such
laws are ever made. They are, in fact,
made from the influence ofbutchers, and
half the Eastern States have had their
Legislatures in an uproar about the
matter in the last few years. Certainly
it is a pity to have this legitimate occu-
patton and business of any man cut off
or injured, but it is much more impOr-
tant to have ten cheap customers get
cheap meat than to enable one butcher
to flourish at the expense of those
customers.
The interest of the man who raises
the Easten OK should be much larger than
that of the man who slaughtered him,
but little is herd from the husbandman
interested. As a matter of fact the
freight charges give him great advan-
tage. and the butcher with him, and the
Western supply is so overwhelming that
the price of cattle and therefore of beef
was fixed by the supply in Chicago long
before shipping dressed meatwas thought
of and in al probability it will continue
to be fixed there or West of there. And
the way for the East to do with beef
and everything else which comes from
the West, is to swap when possible and
adjust itself to circumstances and above
all, avoid trying any Chinese wall bust
.-Herdd.