Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-07-07
HORSE BEEF N IOWA
Hundreds OF Old Hack Horses
Slaughtered for Food at
Davenport.
Berlin Horse Butcher EN-.
ployed and Business Con.
Quoted With Secrecy.
Saloons. Railroad Contractors
and Cheap Restaurants Are
the Patrons.
Special to Times-Republican.


Davenport, July 7.-Those who pat
roniZe the free lunch saloons and cheap
lunch counters will be surprised to
learn that the coarse beef in most sa-
loon sandwiches and in many of those
sold by the cheap lunch wagons and
establishments is plain horse meat. On
an average 800 head of horses are killed
and served to the people of Davenport
every year in the form of prime roasts,
steaks, corned beef and dried beef. Ihls
is a fact which is not generally known
and never exploited, but nevertheless
which is true. On the outskirts of this
city. about a mile from the limits. is a
genuine horse slaughtery, where dis
ahled equines are converted into choice
beef cuts. A man who once worked in
horse slaughtering house near Berlin
l;shment.
For some years past the American
public has enjoyed vague suspicion to
the effect that the dried beef was moth
ing more or less than horse fanks and
suspicious have often been we'll
founded. But it is doubtful if few liv-
ing in Davenport ever realized that 1or
the greater part the hot beef and saul
sage handed out so literally over free
lunch counters in saloons never saw a
beeve except as they passed on the thor
oughfares and that a goodly portion of
the meat which is sold so cheaply in
many restaurants was possibly choice
cut from the flank of their old family
mare Betty. But such is the case.
Disabled horses are the particular
prey of our horse butcher. When a
lorse falls and breaks his leg or his
neck he becomes absolutely valueless to
his owner, no matter how high his
market price might have been but
moment before. If only a leg is broken
the horse might be shot. Then it is
that the horse butcher or his agents
get in their work. A dollar will usually
buy the carcass, for the owner is fur
Their saved the expense of Kidding him.
self of the body. The dead horse is then
carried to the slaughter house and cut
up. AS a general thing only the TANKS
and the meat along the backbone are
saved. The rest OH the average horse
is too tough for use. His hide is stripped
eff and cured, while the offal goes to
the hogs. The once fine driving horse
than goes to the market in the form of
prime beef.
Despite the fact that the man who
4. H., I,
rorterhouses all his life and grown fat
uron them, he conducts his business
under the cover of secrecy, for there
are state laws to be gotten around, and
likewise public prejudice to be over
come. No matter how highly enthusi-
astic good American gourmand might
wax over a prime piece of corned beef
the chances are he would drop thai.
Piece as hot iron should some one
suddenly convince him that the meat
was from horse. So thru two or three
agents stationed thruout the city he
quietly disposes of the greater Part of
his product right here in Davenport.
The balance is shipped to railway con-
tractors and others who wish good
meat for their men and wish it cheap.
To these orders often go the fore quar-
ters. pieces which in the home trade
are strictly tabooed.
The saloons are the chief consumers
of his product. The high prices of beef
are too high to make it seem really
just to serve it free, so when horse meat
comes along at 4 or cents pound the
man in charge jumps at the chance and
lis customers wonder at the great free
lunch which he is putting up.