The National tribune., 1906-06-07

;, States soldiers as all the bullets of tn
Spanfards; only. the army beef, be
sides. was not fresh canned, ii was oil
stuff that had been lying for years i
the cellars"
So goes the story. We all kno,
about canned beef. however. Presi
/, dent Roosevelt should not be surprise
, at the revelations of mere stor
writer when he had at first hand, il
, !, fact first mouth" the story o
canned meat for Cuba.
. Potted Meats.
"They advertised potted chicken,
says this wonderful story and it wa
., like the clearinghouse soup of tn
comic papers. through which tn,
chicken had walked with rubbers on
The things that went into tina
mixture were tripe and the fat of pork
and beef suet and hearts of beef, ant
finally waste ends of veal when the,
had any," The story tells a tai,
about what potted game was made ou
4 of, and devilled ham, and how tn,
various uncomfortable things were
/ ground up and colored with injuriou.
/ chemicals.
| anybody who could invent new
imitation had been sure of a fortune
from old Durham" said Jurgis's infor-
mant; "but it was hard to think OF
anything new in place where sc
many sharp wits had been at work
| for SO long; where men welcomed tu-
berculosis in the cattle they were feed
ing, because it made them fatten more
| quickly; and where they bought up all
| the old rancid butter left over In the
| grocery stores of a continent, and 'oxi-
| died it by a forced-air process. to
take away the odor, rechurned 1t with
| skim-milt, and sold it in bricks in the
cities! Up to year or two ago 1t had
been the custom to kill horses in the
enthusiastically for fertilizer: but
after long agitation the newspapers
had been able to make the public real
ize that the horses were being canned.
Now, 1t was against the law to Kill
horses in Packingtown, and the law
was really complied with-for the
present at any rate. Any day, how
ever. one might see sharphorned and
shaggy creatures running with the
sheep-and yet what a job you would
have to get the public to believe that
good part of what 1t buys for lamb
and mutton is really goats fiesh,"
And then there is another sweet
smelling paragraph or so. In which
the various human packinghouse dis
eases" are fully described. 1t is abso-
lutely too unspeakably filthy to print
in decent newspaper. The part of the
story which described the fertilizing
works is probably about as true a story
of that vile-smelling place as could be
written. 1t is bad enough to pass
within half mile of fertilizing plant
If the wind happens to lie in your di-
rection. To work In 1t must be a reg
ular Dante's Inferno.
The description of the sausage room
is rather decenter than one would ex-
pect after reading other portions of
the story f' --'t' ~
Presumably sausages were once
chopped and stuffed by hand. and If
SO it would be interesting to know. how
many workers had been displaced by
these inventions. On one side OF the
room were the hoppers into which
man shoyelled loads of meat and
wheelbarrows full of spices; in these
great bowls were whirling knives that
made 1000 revolutions a minute, and
when the meat was ground fine and
adulterated with potato-flour, and well
mixed with water Ii was forced to the
stuffing machines on the other side of
the room. The latter was tended by
women; there was a sort of spout, like
the nozzle of a hose. and one of the
women would take a long string ofl
easing and put the end over the noz-
zle and then work the whole thing
on, as one works on the finger of a
tight glove. This string would be 20i
or 80 feet long, but the woman would
have 1t all on in a jiffy. and when she
had several on she would press a lever
and stream of sausage meat would
be shot out, taking the casing with it'll
as it came. Thus one might stand
and see appear, miraculously borne |
from the machine. wiggling snake of
sausage of incredible length. In front
was a big pan which caught these
creatures, and two more women whol
AfpaI rN- Il.
and twisted them into links. This was II
for the uninitiated the most perplex-
Ing work of all, for all that the wo-
man had to give was a single turn of
the wrist, and in some way she con-
trived to give 1t so that instead of an
endless chain of sausages, one after
another, there grew under her. hands
a bunch of strings, all dangling from
a single center. 1t was quite like the
feat of a prestidigitator. for the wo-
man worked so fast that the eye could
literally not follow her. and there was
only a mist of motion and tangle of |
appearing"
Then there Is paragraph of pain
full gush about the woman who sits
there doing this with tense. set face,
with two wrinkles craven in her face,
and how she sits there day after day
ioing this same thing year in and
year out. Why, good gracious, what
ioes anybody do who works at a GER
ain thing bat sit at IL or stand at II
year in and year out? The sausage wo-
nan probably could do nothing else
She must have been a bad housekeep-
.r. from Sinclair's description of homes
n Packingtown. She couldn't sew, she
couldn't cook decent meal Of
and If she had to work she
1ad to do the things that she knew
low to do. and should be thankful
hat she knew that much.
"UncIean, UncIenn.v
1t is useless to go on with any more
quotations from THE Jungle" for you
,an see 1t is "unciean. unclean, un-
,lean." Sinclair shows that his mani
vas no better than the offal in which
lie had worked. for after he had killed
lis wife with cruelty and maudlin pas
ion. he left Packingtown and got
work finally as a tramp in the harvest
ield in Missouri. de made good
,and, but did he try to improve? No,
indeed; not he. He proceeded to sink
over and lower. In the packing
house he had found his level He
irifted back to Chicago and went TO
work in the same old hole. Then he
played at politics, got some money to-
.ether and lost it gambling and in
lrunken brawling.
Bah! What's the use of followingl
he bit of rotten driftwood any fur
her?
If the filth of it is real, then it is
lisgraceful that the United States Gov
has had in its employ men
IS vile as this book makes them out