The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-15
Detectives Show How Monaghan
Butchers Have Lost
Business.
THE EFFECT OF COMBINATION.
]. lie Maitre, Who Supplies the French
Hospital, Accused of Buying
Chinatown Beef.

i
how much meat was being handled by the
Chinese and incidentally who the GUS
toners of the Mongolians were.
| The sale of beef in Chinatown has
caused considerable hard feeling among the
butchers. Until July of this year the Chi
nese jobbers were handling about $50 car
cases every week. Their principal Gus
toners were the retail merchants, who
bought the choice pieces cheap.
Soon these men found that the Chinese
were entirely controlling the market for
cheaper grades of meat. and that their
patronizing of Chinese, while apparently
an economy, was really suicidal.
To remedy this it was decided to revolu-
| tionize the market. The wholesalers were
| asked to agree not to furnish the Chinese
! jobbers any more meat. They refused,
claiming that the Chinese had large
trade among their own countrymen that
was too valuable to be Idly thrown away.
| A compromise was effected later.
"a resolution was prepared by which
the wholesalers were to promise to sell
| only to the Chinese for Chinese consump-
! tion," SAID Sam Hammond, president of
| the Butchers Board of Trade, in explain
| ing the matter ANY Chinese butcher
| selling to Caucasian was to be black
| his meats in Butchertown. At the same
time it was declared an infringement of
the rules of the Board of Trade for any
white butcher to buy from Chinese. This
| meant fine of $50
''1n just four weeks every Chinese meat
| jobber in San Francisco had been black
listed. They had all sold to white butch
ers and the wholesalers lost the entire
Chinese trade, the bulk of which went to
the abattoirs at Baden. But the retailers
| were also forced to tuy their meat else
where than in Chinatown.
"The effect on the Chinatown meat
trade was instantaneous. From handling
$50 beeves and about $50 sheep each week
their business fell to the handling of fifty
were handled as they had been in the be-
ginning, by whites. This added m materially
to the prosperity of the Caucasian butch
ers, strengthened the market, and thus
was of benefit to the wholesalers"
Incidentally. Mr.. Hammond gave very
interesting account of the growth OF the
butcher business in Chinatown. 1t seems
that, originally, the Chinese ate only pork,
poultry and fish; but about fifteen years
ago a slight demand for beef began.
The Chinese meat-dealers bought small
pieces of the neck and the quarter from
the white butcher and retailed them. The
demand grew, and they would buy whole
quarter. Then they found that the whites
| would take the loins, the ribs and other
| ton to the price paid Tor an entire side,
| and they began to sell these to the white
butchers, and to keep the poor meat for
| their own countrymen.
| The Chinese were satisfied with smaller
| margin on the sale of Il carcass than would
| allow white to live. Besides they
| bought cows so old or diseased that the
white butchers would not handle them.
| But the loins even of these animals could
| be used and were bought by the whites.
| The thrifty Chinese reached out and ex-
| tended their trade so far that the white
butchers found themselves forced to pat
ronize the Chinese in order to be able to
! compete with their fellows.
| This state of affairs has been stopped.
| The concerted action of the wholesalers
| and retailers effected the change. Re-
| Gently there has been some grum bling
| among the wholesale butchers of the Board
of Trade who regret the fifty beeves now
| sold 10 Chinatown by Baden though they
| control the sale OF the other 200 head that
are now being sold by the Caucasian butch
| ers. 1t was to show that there were only
about fifty beeves being sold weekly by the
Chinese that the detectives were put to
work. The results were very satisfactory.
There are seven butcher-shops in China
| town. They are conceded the pork mar
ket and no account OF that was kept. Their
total purchases of other meats for last week
was 53A beeves, 3314 calves and 142 sheep,
besides about 1900 pounds of beef that was
| bought in small pieces.
| These figures were obtained by De-
tectives Cal. A. Burnett and Henry E.
Walsh, who for the past two weeks have
watched the butcher-shops of Chinatown
from O'Clock in the morning till after
| o'clock at night. According to them the
| 1or n coll Tr,o1y "ocb
ington street, handled only 1917 beeves.
Formerly he bought as many as 70 beeves
| in one week from the slaughter-houses OF
| Butchertown alone. This man also
handles s calves and IS sheep. According
| to the detectives report the other six
shops handled the following amount of
meat:
Lee Sung 4 Co.. 1o1S Washington alley. 2
Tong Sang &, Co., 80 Washington alley, 8
ouong Sang 4 Co., s56 Jackson street, ~
beeves, calves, Is sheep and several small
See Vow & Co., 1904 Dupont street, 714
beeves, 2 calves, 8 sheep
| beeves, 2 calves, 81 sheep.
| Quong Chong, 1927 Dupont street, 81
| beeyes, 6 calves, ID sheep.
| In order to procure these data, strict DIS
cipline was necessary. Constant watch
was kept on CHINATOWN and several times
| members were discovered straying IN the
forbidden territory. Two members refused
to pay the fine of $50 inflicted upon men,
| bers for buying beef from the Chinese, and
they were expelled from the association.
These were J. LIE Maitre of Center Market
and j. Rossi & Sons, Sis Broadway.
Another complication has recently
arisen, involving the French Hospital.
Mr.. LIE Maitre some weeks ago received the
contract for supplying the hospital with
meat. About ten days ago the Board of
Trade informed the trustees of that insti-
tuition that Mr.. LIE Maitre was purchasing
| a portion of his beef in Chinatown, and
asked them to look into the matter. A
committee was at once appointed to in
vestigate.
Mr.. LIE Maitre declared yesterday after
noon that ne had not bought pound of
beef in Chinatown for weeks. He as
serted, though, that he could prove that
80 per cent of the butchers in the Board of
Trade did so. The detectives in the en-
ploy of the Board of Trade say that Mr.. lie
Maitre sends his cart to Chinatown almost
every afternoon and even tell the parts of
beef that are put into it.
Mr.. Wolf, secretary of the French Hos