The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1910-11-22
POI FACTORIES
FOUND FILTHY
Stringent Inspection DisCloses
Conditions Unsanltary to
Bad Degree.
SEEKING A PROPER REMEDY
Enforcement Of Law Would Cut
off Supply for Several
Months.
tFrom Saturday "a Advertiser.)

The choice of cutting of the prin-
cipal food supply of the Hawaiians or
permitting the sale of the same to con:
tlnue under particularly unsatisfactory
conditions is the dilemma fronting Food
Commissioner Z. B. Blanchard.
With his assistant, II. Myhre, he has
Just completed the inspection of forty
eight poi manufacturing houses in Ho-
nolulu, taking in all from the meanest
pake poimaker to the larger factories.
Conditions in all; according to state
ments yesterday, he found to be so con
trary to the laws of decency and sani.
tation that a procedure based on the
law would quickly put them out of
business or make them mend their
ways.
Incidentally an enforcement of the
law would put an END to poi manufac-
ture for a month and perhaps more, for
most of the Chinese are said to be pre-.
pared to quit the business now rather
than comply with the unenforced regu-
lations covering the manufacture of
considerable money ON their premises.
Out of the forty-eight houses, said
Blanchard yesterday, none were found
where the poi being turned out was
legally fit for human consumption. In
several places the boards where the poi
was being made was directly over cess.
pools and in great many other places
it was not above six feet away from
one.
The manufacture of the food itself
! is said to be done under the most out
rageous conditions. In nearly all cases
it is performed by Cinnamon who
stripped half naked over the boards
work the taro into poi in rooms where
they eat, sleep and live, always foul
with tobacco smoke and often with
opium smoke. Many were caught rims.
ing their hands in buckets of stagnant
water (Which had apparently remained
unchanged for weeks) hundred times
during the "kneading" of the poi be.
fore they turned it over. Perspiration
rolled from their bodies in delightful
stream into the food of the Hawaiians
and became incorporated in a mass
which accumulated dirt and cobweb.
from the room, dust and dung from the
street and ashes from the nearby cook
ing places
BIanchard's official description, as
recorded by notes taken during the in
spection, excels this in lucidity, and
terms necessitated by facts are used
that could not be printed.
He found the Kalihi poi factory and
the similar larger concerns as bad, al
though the poi was manufactured by
machinery. Sanitary conditions were
little better, one of the concessions
made to clealiness by them being the
steaming of the poi barrels.
The barrels are returned TO the fac
tories by the Hawaiians just as they
are emptied, after their contents have
been fermented and eaten. The cracks
are filed with the hardened, sous dough
and this still remains, though the steam
cleans the balance of the inside surface
! The Chinese manufacturers do not dc
even this, and the barrels are refilled
Just as they arrived, having been used
probably fifty times by as many fami
lies without washing. This state Of
affairs is now held to be responsible fOl
skin diseases prevailing among Hawa
iians, and it would be neither won
derful nor surprising thing if a goodl,
percentage of all diseases could b,
traced partially to this and to the othe
outrageously insanitary foods of Ho
nolulu.
The factories will be permitted t.
continue for time by their presen
procedure as Blanchard fears a sum
mary warning to the men that the.
will be arrested if making a sale o
the poi under those conditions will b
considered an action too arbitrary.
The disclosures made by Blanchard
, overlooked and tolerated rather tina
totally unknown in Honolulu, viii b
responsible for a poi factory regulating
bill, which will be drafted by the foo
commissioner Office and presented +
the next legislature. The details vii
be published long before the passing o
the law, should such action be takeI
and all those who do not come up I
its requirements will then be summaril
! arrested.
,, HlL0 BOARDS SOLEMN