The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-05-23
HOW "A CITY is FED.
A Visit to New York's Meat Markets a
Daybreak.

nOuf on purpose, duQ W nAu one sell
in a gray, warm drizzle waiting for a
freight train near the long lines of black
wharves-that was startling and had
the delightful charm Of novelty.
was on my way to tbs markets, and
I chose to get there on the train that
carried in the beef from the west.
At last the sluggish beat of the engine
was heard in the smoky distance, and
the lighted front appeared shedding long
rays of light through the misty air
How like a great, grimy serpent it was
as it came slowly on, and what a dis
contented snort it gave as it came to
standstill, while I, assisted by COM
panion, clambered to the top Of the cars,
and wrapping my macintosh around
me prepared to take a survey Of the city
at this strange and mysterious hour.
New York was fast asleep, the just
and the unjust alike. TWAS too late for
even the most belated Of jewellers to be
abroad and too early for the most indus
trious housewife. No, the marketmen
alone owned the city in the breaking
day.
After a slow, throbbing journey along
the silent street edging the river, where
a skeleton fretwork of masts and rig
cling could be seen, we arrived at
great, lighted square, where the CHASTITY
white of electricity mingled with the
yellowness from the multitude of gas
Jets The middle of the big place was
given over to cloth covered wagons.
These held country produce in TONS The
farmers We're beginning to lift the COW
ers, and the vendors of cold lemonade
s'green things that grow smelled de-
hciously fresh and enticing. There were
spinach and asparagus and onion sprouts
and radishes by the ton, strawberries
with the warm of the sunshine in them,
millions and millions of potatoes. Oh,
dear me, could there really be any one
hungry in all the world?
Well, one look at the cutters, and the
pretty, happy thought which suggested
the question fed, for there were the
wasted, elfnlike children Of the very
poor and garrulous Italian crones busy
heaping together the refuse which the
farmers had discarded
We left the vegetable wagons stand
ing like an army of tents in the square
and entered the meat markets What a
noise, what excitement, what activity
It was a new world, a world of meat
and sawdust, where men wore long,
blood spattered aprons, and where mans
supremacy was illustrated in the avenues
of slaughtered animals suspended SO abb
jectly by the legs on the thousands of
cruel, glistening hooks as far as the eye
could reach. Meat everywhere, and ev-
erywhere meatl
1it+1o WOW far+11o7. ,1o1r-71
were being unloaded, and butchers stag
gered up planks into dim storehouses
bearing great sides of beef upon their
greasy shoulders.
'fCluck, cluck, cluck; quack, quack,
quack!''
We followed the sound and heard the
futter Of imprisoned wings. Through
great, wooden barred cages the poor
feathered creatures so soon to be turned
into roasts and fricassees could be seen
ducks staring at you pathetically over
their queer fiat beaks, chickens and
many other varieties of smaller birds.
From the long rows of crates, piled one
above the other, came this whispered
futtering, this ceaseless movement.
''Inever want to see a chop or broi1-
ed chicken again - l exclaimed, and we
took a cross town car to the other side of
the town where the big fish markets are
stationed
Here the briny treasures were set out
on long stretches of slabs. They shone
with a finny luster in Opalescent and
varying hues.
The smell Of fish was in the air. Long
strings Of them were being unloaded
from the smacks moored alongside the
docks, and every crawling thing that
finds its home on water beds was there,
winling at you with black beaded eyes.
We passed a crowd gathered around
huge turtle, examining it with as much
discrimination and enthusiasm as
sportsman does blooded horse.
By this time the fresh air from the
river had given us an appetite of most
awful proportions We decided to break
fast with the marketmen. On our way
TO the almost open air restaurant we
passed wagon vendors buying their daily
stock, thrifty boarding house keepers
and poor, economical mothers getting
food for the early table.
All, here was the eating house, and
what gusto there was evident every
where-bOys letting the fOaming coffee
pour noisily from big, nickel plated
urn, men eating hungrily and with evil
dent delight. A popular song was being
whistled by the cook somewhere in the
back regions, and bootblack was dane
ing hOrnpipe on the doorstep.
But, oh, that coffee! The perfumes of
Arabia were strong in it.
From the thick and heavy cups placed
before us came swaying clouds of steam
that sent the early morning cobwebs
from the brain. It may have been the
rawness of the early air, it may have
been the potency of the spirit of adven-
ture, but that cup of coffee never had
been equaled, and am sure can never
be outrivaled.
After all this hur1y burly in the light
ed markets stacked with food, how
strange it was to go up town and see the