Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-01-17
FROM PIG 70 PORK
The Journey Takes Perhaps Four
Minutes at the Packing
House.
A Marshalltown Institution That
Paid Out $1,000. 900 Last
Year.
|
Finds Marshalltown a Splendid
Point for Distribution OF
Finished Product.

Eight hundred hogs lined UP out al
Britain & Co.'S packing house today
waiting for the elevator. In each case
the elevator went up. The inclined plane
over which the porker passed from the
yards to the waiting room adjacent to
the elevator was the beginning of the
last Journey he would take as hog.
He entered the gates of the hog in
ferno as an individual; he came out as
pork, hams, sausage, shoulders, sausage
skins and pigs feet drysalted, picked,
sugar-cured, smoked and packed.
He came up the inclined plane with
the rest of the drove. A boy deftly
and quietly slipped graphing chain
about, his hook and he was lifted head
down and squealing into the air. He
slid along a trolley to where a
CORY figure. bare armed and
brawney,- stood with a flashing knife
above a puddle of blood. There
was flash of steel, swift. strong
thrust and a smothered squeal and the
hog had taken his first real step to-
ward the pork barrel. Together with
long row of struggling victims ne slid
along the trolley and fell with splash
into the scalding vat. Here he re-
manned perhaps minute while the
boiling water loosened his hair and
thence was thrown by an iron arm out
upon platform. Two men stood wait
ing They fastened another graphing
hook to him and rapidly Invested him
of hisf bristles. He scarcely stopped
moving and as he passed one of the
men reached out and with a single mo-
ton stripped his hooks of their cover
ing. From this platform he continued
his journey to the scraper tall cylin-
der filed with knives each set upon a
spring and which adapt themselves to
the shape of the hogs body be he large
or small. When he comes from the
scraper his hair Is gone and the hog
that went In black is changed to a
clean white. A boy selzes his legs and
cuts loose the strong tendons Of the
hook, a man adjusts gambrel and he
hangs head down again ready for the
hari-kari artist who removes the inter-
nal organs. He makes a savage slash,
his helper a. quick snatch and the hog
passes on leaving his digestive appar-
atus on block at the mercy Of the
boys who separate and manipulate
them for sausage cases. Here he passes
under stream of cold water and the
leaf lard is extracted by another deft
handed, operator Further along the
dry-shavers remove the last spots of
hair that may. have been missed by the
scraperS and when he energies from
under their knives his skin shines With
q clean shave. Now he rides on the
trolley into another room where the
splitter, armed with a heavy cleaver,
awaits his coming. When he is thru
work the animal has ceased to be hog
and is only two halves hanging from the
gambrel. Thence he goes into the
cooling room where 300 others are hang
ing to wait forty-eight hours before the
cutting sailing. picking and packing
processes make him finished pro-
duct. The journey has taken less than
five minutes and he has in so short
time been transformed from grunting
swine into the material for princes
dinner
The dry sailing rooms are piled with
tons of side meats and bacon in process
of curing Rack upon rack of pork
PiiCo w lhC SSiiinEs aiNcIitdUie Cdld-
comb Of hogs Gangs of men are contin-
ally tearing down and resulting these
piles. There are racks OF mess pork
barrels and tierces of hams corded as
high as they can be rolled and barrels
OF tongues that bring cents each
wholesale. Little mountains of cheeks
and loins and the dozen other divisions
of the deceased are piled in the cutting
and sausage rooms; and tons OF bacon
and hams hang on hooks in the smoke
housessover slow hickory fires.
There is little wasted in a packing
bouse. The squeal and the toe nails are
about the only portions OF the pig that
escape serving some useful purpose.
Even the scraps Of skin and the offal
from the lard watts are cut, dried and
ground into fertilizer. The silver
mounted hair brush on my lady's dress
ing case Is made from the bristles
enatched from hogs back by the
aproned. wet and hurried packing house
Hired man.
This packing house is a good thing for
Marshalltown and emphasizes the avail |
ability of this city as a location for
What one man can an
other may do. Britain & Co. killed last |
year 1855 hogs. or considerably over
200 car loads. They paid out for hogs |
and labor s1,616oOo in round numbers;
they sold from Marshalltown over ST.
100000 in the finished product and en-
ployed thru the year from 125 to $50 men.
A. g. Click. secretary and treasurer of
the company. says the company finds |
the matter of distribution easy. Salts
factory freight rates are readily obtain
eble,' said Mr.. Click. II can not see,"
be continued, why Marshalltown should
rot be a most excellent location for
whose raw material is
obtainable. The labor is
here or may be had, We have never had
strikes or labor troubles in Marshall
town. The size of the city and the high
class of our laboring men preclude such
so prevalent in large In
dustrial centers. I believe there is excel
lent business in many lines of manufac-
ture to be had in Marshalltown.1
Licensed to Wed
Joseph r. Binford, real estate, aged
%, and Elyse A. Merriman, aged 20,
both of Marshalltown /.
Frederick L. Beetner farmer aged %