Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-11-09

| with speed, a rush, and an enthusl-
asnl rarely known in the slow leisure
of political jobs. About twenty thou
sand pounds of impure food go to the
bonflres every day; cold-storage ware
| houses are being turned inside out,
| department stores are working furi-
| ously to get their musty cellars cleaned
out before the city inspectors eaten
| them The word raid in Chicago no
| longer applies to saloons and dives; II
| is most often heard in connection with
| grocery stores and candy factories.
| For years there was one man in Chi
| cago city hall at the mention of whose
| name everybody smiled. He was fat
| He weighed three hundred pounds, and
| everybody spoke of him as the LATEST
man in the City Hail." His job was
Fish Inspector" and so everybody
| called him "Fish"-his baptismal name
| was Patrick j. Murray. BY virtue of
being powerful In the Thirty second
Ward he had the softest of all soft mu-
| nicipal snaps. Fish Inspector" meant
nothing whatever. There was an in
vestigation of the City Hall at one time
under Mayor Harrison, and nobody
could discover that Fish" Murray did
anything at all except to draw his sal
airy.
The passing of Mayor Harrison and
the incoming of Mayor Dunno connoted
troublous times for Fish" He lost his
sinecure as Fish Inspector" and saw
prospects of himself in the cold world
without a job. BY dint of much hust-
ling he got sixty day appointment as
food inspector in the new administra-
ton But sixty days would soon come
to an end and Fish" was all for doing
something to lengthen his tenure
Fish" said DR.. Charles j. Whalen. the
new Commissioner of Health, "if you
wish to stay on. you have got to make
good" "Fsh's" three hundred pounds
of inertia We're. transfused into kinetic
energy. He made good with ven
geance, and Mayor Edward F. Dunno
Immediately reappointed him. Murray
can have his job as long as he lives If
he keeps UP such work as he has been
doing" was the word from the City
Hall
Murray does things on a big scale.
He raids merchant princes" and ghet-
to stores alike. He condemned and de-
in one Of the largest wholesale grocery
plants; confiscated tons on tons OF
moldy candy in one of the biggest de-
partment stores, seized $4,000 pounds
of bad hams in a great packing plant
and captured fifteen tons of cold-stor-
age chickens in single swoop. More
than this he made public the name of
every violator Of the lava punish-
nent that the malefactors dreaded
more than they would fines of half
their fortunes.
Since the public has learned that 1t
has a department that does things,
complaints of bad food have been COM
ing in by the hundred.
Here are some chickens / bought
last night. They are bad" and a small
man cautiously began uncovering a
basket.
"a man across the lake could tell
that" shouted Murray. Take them
outside and I'll talk to you"
What do you want ?" this to a dap
per person who advanced with letter.
ooh, yes, you're from - wholesale
grocery. You've found forty dozen
spoiled fruit? Yes, you're all finding
SPoltCa SdllllSo IL 01I liON. wait uS "
haul it away. Well, Til send wagon
for it. That mates 10000 cans of
spoiled fruit that have on my hands
right now"
Juiceless Lemons RefilIed.
Until l got busy" explained Muir.
ray, and he showed affidavits to prove
it "all the spoiled canned fruit, or most
of it, was taken to barn on the north
side and 'reprocessed.' They cooked it
over, put on new labels, and sold it for
new.
What in the world am 1 going to do
with all this stuff? Where1l dump it.?
Got into trouble over the last l dis
posed of. So easy to get into trouble.
Buried hundred cases of juiceless
lemons that had shrunk and been filled
with water and some kind of acid to
make them look good. Kids dug 'em
up and sold EN-. Women got sick.
More trouble for me. Guess I'll burn
those thirty thousand cans Of fruit"
And burn them he did, boxes and ALL
The sound OF exploding cans was heard
for blocks.
Murray hunorously says the secret
of his success lies in his nose. II smell
'em out, he says in answering those
who ask him how he found all this
bad food. st follow my nose, and 1t
never fails me in this business
1t is a fact, "Fish's" friends will tell
you, that he has the scent of an In
dan. With this scent he trailed a
bear-which had been killed, some cit
liens averred, when Chicago was only
a blockhouse, and kept in storage ever
since-over a great part of the north
and west sides of the city. The dea.er
who had it on his hands was francti-
calling driving from place to place
with the carcass, endeavoring to sell It
to some unsophisticated market owner.
The odor which floated after the vas
on resulted in the capture.
Murray himself heads the raid:ng
parties. A "free lunch" famine in the
downtown saloons resulted from one
attack. "Fish" found and closed what
is now referred to as the clearing
house for free lunch" The place was
sort of wholesale kitchen rune by a
man who has contracts to supply near
ly all the downtown saloons with cook
ed free lunch.
'"That was the dirtiest, foulest hole l
ever saw in, my life" said Murray.
"The man buys the refuse of the big
hotels and restaurants and spoiled
goods from meat markets and grocer
les doctors it up, and it becomes sand
witches. roast beef, soup or salad for
free lunch"
Another discovery that shocked
Chicago was the fact that concern
buys all the bad eggs in the market