The National tribune., 1906-07-19
THE PACKING-HOUSES.
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of them. They had no old odor about
them.
They all looked worn and long used
but the tables. learned that the iron
tables were covered with wood. but that
all this had been pulled off and the re-
movable heavy wooden boards put on
to cut on. So 1t would seem that the
tables had been considerably improved.
followed the removal of some empty
barrels. and saw them taken to the
steam bath, where they were scalded
out, and when they passed me to the
air tiey were clean enough to put bread
in.
The Girls All Foreigners.
The girls at work were all foreigners.
I spoke to several but they stared mt
me uncom prehendingly. and went auto
matically on with their work They
wore a sort of uniform dress OF blue
calico, a big white butcher apron over
that, which was evidently clean that
morning. but badly soiled at that hour.
and 1t couldn't be otherwise. Many of
these girls wore also a big oilcloth
apron. / do not approve of those OIL
cloth aprons, for many reasons that Z
woman understands. They heat the
abdomen; they hang very heavy; they
do not permit the air to reach the body,
and 1 consider them extremely un-
healthy. The girls wear them by choice
1 am told, and they get themselves very
wet In some of the steamy work.
must say frankly that Mr.. Sinclair In
his book boom for Congress, known as
THE Jungle" probably wasted a good
deal of sentiment. The women and the
men who do the work in the packing
houses that / have been speaking Of
probably could not earn five cents a day
at anything else. They do not look to
have mentality much above the crea-
lures who's. flesh they are handling. I
saw only two bright faces in about ESQ
girls who were at work. They did not
look unhappy; as a matter of fact. they
did not look to me as though they were
capable Of feeling much sentiment of
any kind. and that in that work they
had about found their level.
/ went into the "rest room of the
girls. Its floor was white as soap and
water could make It, Long rows of iron
cages were divided by iron partitions,
each girl having one in which to put
clothes that she was not wearing. I also
saw that each girl had a teacup and
saucer, knife, fork, spoon and many of
them plates lying on the bottom of the
cage, and the fOrewoman told me that
the girls ate their lunch from these,
their own property. They are permit
ted to eat their lunch in the rest room
IL they like, she said. but prefer usually
to eat out in the big room where they
work. The men eat there. In the rest
room were numerous wooden benches
and couch draped in white muslin, on
which the girls who may be Ill lie down.
They have also some simple medicines
on hand. The place was bare looking.
but clean. l thought it was probably as
clean and as inviting as the homes that
most of them came from. / have been
told by women who have tried to do
work among these girls that
they are not worth the time spent IN
them. They prefer the packing-house
work to learning housework, going to
school or anything that is uplifting.
to eat. something to wear
and marry at Is is about the height of
their ambition. If they find girl with
any higher ambition she does not work
in the pack'ng-house.
The Sausage Department.
The sausage department is one of the
places to go in the packing-houses, for
you never could guess that there are so
many kinds Of indgestible ways of put
ting meat in castings. There is some
thing which Is put up for the Cuban
trade. which looks to me as though it
u.
thing as is sold about the midnight hour
in downtown sections of big cities as
red hots," and they look 1T. They are
an Inflammation of red-hot pepper.
Chill con carne isn't In 1t with those
which are anilined bright
red and smoked In peculiar way. There
must be Indigestion by the pound in
them, and possibly sudden death. Yet
they are called very fine" sausages.
There is another sausage which par
ticularly examined, and after studying
its encarnadined casing I asked for the
of that department who
came, and to my question very cour-
teously replied that the things were
colored. At first he was obtuse. and
did not know what with. By dint of
much questioning 1 finally made him
say that they do this coloring with
"Vandyke Brown"
WELL" 1 said, what kind Of stuff
is it?"
1T Is a dark powder, and we use a
quarter of a pound of it to 500 gallons
of water" he replied.
I insisted on asking what kind of col,
oring it is, and he evaded the question.
Finally l said. rs not Vandyke Brown
an aniline dye?'
He hesitated an instant. and then said
that 1t is. l broke open a sausage at
his request: they were hot from the
coloring right then, and hung on racks
to dry like strings of gigantic beads.
He said that the coloring matter did not
go through the skin in which they were
stuffed. and sure enough 1t does not: but
people eat the casing. so it is poisonous.
! asked why the sausages were dyed.
since 1t did not add to their keeping
qualities or affect the taste at all. and
he replied that the trade demanded il.
"We could not sell pound of these
to our Eastern trade II we did
not color them,'' he declared. "Now,
for our Western trade there is not much
demand for the colored sausage, but in
the Eastern States they will have them
cclored or not at all. 1t is so with the
Cuban sausage. We could not sell them
at all If we did not color them highly"
You see. it is just another case of
giving people what they want. If they
ask for poison food. why, feed it to
them; it is their funeral. so the pack
seem to think.