East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-06-11
FILTHY MEAT
SOLO To PUBLIC
A DESCRIPTION OF
CHICAGO PACKING HOUSES
Conditions In the Unsanitary and
Vile Rooms Where Food Products
Are Prepared for Market.

The report of Special Inspectors
Neill and Reynolds, sent by President |
Roosevelt to investigate the Chicago
packing houses, shows a horrible state |
of affairs, and justifes in every way
the severe censure received by the |
packers from the press, the people |
and the president.
A portion of the report of the in
spectors Is as follows:
An absence of cleanliness was also
found everywhere In the handling of
meat being prepared for the various
meat-food products. After killing, car
cases are well washed, and up to the
time they reach the cooling room are
handled In fairly sanitary and
cleanly manner.
The parts that leave the cooling
room for treatment in bulk are also
handled with regard to cleanliness,
cooling room to those departments OF
the packing houses In which various
forms OF meat products are prepared
are handled with no regard whatever
for cleanliness. In some of the larg-
est establishments sides that are sent
to what Is known as the boning room
are thrown I'm a heap on the floor.
The workers climb over these heaps
OF meat select the pieces they wish,
and frequently throw them down upon
the dirty floor beside their working
bench.
Even In cutting the meat upon the
bench, the work is usually held
pressed against their aprons. and
these aprons were. as a rule, inde-
scribably filthy. They were made in
most cases of leather or OF rough
sacking and bore long accumulated
grease and dirt. In only few places
were suitable oilcloth aprons worn.
Moreover, men were seen to climp
from the floor and stand, with shoes
dirty with the refuse of the floors, on
the tables upon which the meat was
handled. They were seen at the
lunch hour sitting on the tables on
spot on which the meat product was
handled, and all this under the. very
eye OF the superintendent Of the
room, showing that this was the COM
mon practice.
Meat scraps were also found being
shoveled into receptacles from dirty
floors where they were left to lie until
again shoveled into barrels or into
machines for chopping. These floors,
II must be-noted, We're in most cases
damp and soggy. In dark. ill-ventilat-
ed rooms, and the employees in utter
ignorance of cleanliness or danger to
health expectorated at will upon
them.
In a word, we saw meat shoveled d
from filthy floors, piled on tables
rarely washed. pushed from room to
room in rotten box carts in all OF
which processes It was in the way of
gathering dirt, splinters. floor filth,
and the expectoration of tuberculous
and other diseased workers. Where
comment was made to floor superin-
tendents about these matters, II was
always the reply that this meat would
afterwards be cooked, and that this
sterilization would prevent any dan
ger from its use. Even this, It may
be pointed out In passing, is not
wholly true. A very considerable por-
ton Of the meat so handled Is sent
out as smoked products and in the
form OF sausages, which are prepared
TO be eaten without being cooked
A particularly glaring instance of
uncleanliness was found in a room
where the best grade of sausage was
being prepared for export 1t was
made from carefully selected meats,
and was being prepared to be eaten
uncooked. In this case the employe
carted the chopped-up meat across a
room in a barrow, the handles II
which were filthy with grease.
The meat was then thrown upon
tables. and the employe climbed upon
the table, handled the meat with his
unwashed hands, knelt with his dirty
apron and trousers in contact with
tpe meat he was spreading out, and
alter he had finished his operation
again took hold OF the dirty handles
OF the wheelbarrow, went back for
another lead and repeated this process
Indefinitely. Inquiry developed the
fact that there was no water in this
room at all, and the only method the
man adopted for cleaning his hands
was to rub them against his dirty
apron or on his still filthier trousers
As an extreme example of the en-
tire disregard on the part Of en-
poyes of any notion of cleanliness In
handling dressed meat, we saw a hos
that had Just been killed, cleaned
washed and started on its way to the
cooling room fall from the sliding raj
TO a dirty wooden floor and slide part
way into a filthy mems privy. 1t was