The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1906-06-07

OF 10 CIear MS eyes 80 tndt ne CUuiu
see? 1t was stuff such as this that
made the 'embalmed beer that had
killed several times as many United
| States soldiers as all the bullets of the
Spaniards; only. the army beef. bes
| sides, was not fresh canned, it was old
stuff that had been lying for years in
| the cellars"
SO goes the story. We all know
about canned beef. however Presi-
dent Roosevelt should not be surprised
at the revelations Of mere story
writer when he had at first hand, in
fact first mouth" the story OF
canned meat for Cuba.
. : Potted Meats. IS.
"They advertised potted chicken,
says this wonderful story land it was
like the clearinghouse soup OF the
comic papers. through which the
chicken had walked with rubbers on.
The things that went into that
mixture were tripe and the fat Of pork,
and beef suet and hearts OF beef, and
finally waste ends Of veal, when they
had any" The story tells tale
about what potted game was made out
of, and devilled ham, and how the
ground up and colored with injurious
chemicals.
Anybody who could invent a new
imitation had been sure Of q fortune
from old Durham" said Jurgis's infor-
mant; but 1T was hard to think OF
anything new In place where SO
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 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 a 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
Sheppard yet what job you would
have to get the public to believe that
good part of what it buys for lamb
and mutton is really goats fiesh!''
And then there is another sweet
smelling paragraph or so, In which
the various human clearinghouse dis
eases" are fully described 1t is abso-
in decent newspaper. The part of the
story which described the fertilizing
works is probably about as true story
Of that yiIe-smelling place as could be
written. 1t is bad enough to pass
within half mile Of fertilizing plant
IL 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.
presumably sausages were once
chopped and stuffed by hand, and If
many workers had been displaced by
these inventions On one side or the
room were the hoppers into which
man shovelled 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 1T 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 hose, and one of the
women would take a long string Of
zle and then work the whole thing
on, as one works on the finger of a
tight glove. This string would be 90
or 80 feet long, but the woman would
have 1t all on in fifty, and when she
had several on she would press a lever
and a stream of sausage meat would
be shot out, taking the casing with it
as it came. Thus one might stand
and see appear, miraculously borne
from the machine. weighing snake of
sausage of incredible length. In front
was big pan which caught these
creatures. and two more women who
seized them as fast as they appeared
and twisted them into links. This was
for the unipitiated the most perplex-
ing work Of all, for all that the wo-
man had to give was a single turn Of
the wrist and I'm some way she con-
trived to give it so that instead Of An
endless chain of sausages, one after
another, there grew under her hands
bunch of strings, all dangling from
feat of 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
sausages appearing"
Then there is paragraph of pain
full gush about the woman who sits
there doing this with tense, set face,
and how she sits there day after day
doing this same thing year In and
year out Why, good gracious, what
does anybody do who works at a GER
tain thing but sit at IL or stand at 1t
year in and year out? The sausage wo-
man probably could do nothing else.
She must have been a bad housekeep-
er. from Sinclair's description Of homes
in Packingtown. She couldn't sew, she
couldn't cook decent meal Of
victuals, and IL she had to work she
had to do the things that she knew
how to do. and should be thankful
that she knew that much.
"UneIean, Unclenn.o
1t is useless to go on with any more
quotations from THE Jungle" for you
can see 1t is "unclean, unclean, I'M
clean" Sinclair shows that his man
was no better than the offal in which
he had worked. for after he had killed
his wife with cruelty and maudlin pas
sion. he left Packingtown and got
work finally as tramp in the harvest
field in Missouri. de made a good
hand, but did he try tn improve? No.
indeed; not he. He proceeded to sinh
lower and lower. In the packing
house he had found his level He
drifted back to Chicago and went TO
work in the same old hole. Then he
played at politics, got some money to-
gether and lost 1t gambling and in