St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-09-28
A COMMUNICATION.
b. w. Brock Writes of Necessity of
Supervising Slaughter Houses.

b. w. Brock Writes of Necessity of
Supervising Slaughter Houses.
To, the Editor Of The Caledonian:
For something over three years
now I have been trying to show the
people of Vermont that they should
demand adequate state inspection of
our local meat supply and super
vision over the places where it is
prepared.
The very nature of the animals
from which we draw this supply
should, it seems to me, in itself,
convince any thinking man of the
necessity of strict inspection of the
product, for, being essentially
dairy state and fattening few steers
we turn to the dry dairy COW for our
beef supply, and she, her vitality
sapped by dairy service, and too
often kept under unsanitary condi-
lions, is in a vast number of cases
tubercular.
The statistics of the United States
bureau of animal industry show
that of the carcasses condemned by
ahe federal meat inspectors each
year for tuberculosis, the great ma
jority are from dairy cattle.
Our hogs also are not kept as in
the West where hog raising is in it
self a great industry, but are penned
in to root over the manure pile of
dairy herds and very often in this
way become infected with tuber-
culosis from the droppings of the
cattle.
1t is we'll recognized in the large
abattoire of Boston and New York
that strangers as these native New
England hogs are called, are largely
affected with this disease.
The places in which the local meat
supply of Vermont is prepared can
not, as whole, be too strongly con-
demned While I have found some
good sanitary country slaughter
foul, unsanitary places, in which
the preparation of wholesome meat
becomes an impossibility.
There is at present no adequate
supervision over these places nor
system of inspection of the products
therefrom, and as our legislature
meets this fall it seems to me that
this is the time to bring the matter
tor the attention of the people, that
they may realize the conditions and
if they wish, see that some pro-
vision is made at Montpelier to
remedy them.
an inspection system could be car
ried out without excessive cost, but
perhaps it is not my province to
outline at this time any. particular
plan or advocate that any particu-
lar department be entrusted with
the work The main thing now is
to convince the people that something
should be and must be done by
somebody, SO that the public. health
may be protected.
To illustrate the conditions of
which 1 speak I enclose some photo
graphs of a slaughter house in the
vicinity of Burlington, taken in
April of this year.
At this place about 20 per cent of
the locally dressed meat sold in that
city has been slaughtered.
1t is a typical country slaughter
house of the worst kind and is no
worse than many others in the state.
1t is needless to call your atten-
ton to the fact that wholesome meat
cannot be prepared in such a place.
No. 1 is a general view of the
premises. The building was origin
ally, I should judge, a corn barn
or some other structure. 1t is a
one-room building with lean-to
for housing stock, and is constructed
| of single unplaned boards with large
intervening spaces which have in
some places, as in the front shown,
| been battered up. There is no water
| in or about this building, no drain
| age of any kind, no cooling facili-
| ties for the dressed beef nor even
| a place where it can be separately
| hung off away from the flies. In
| the extreme left of the picture is a
| pile of heads, feet, and other slaugh-
| ter refuse. In the right foreground
is the carcass of cow which has
decomposed and been picked by the
| birds and other scavengers until it
is simply a mass of rotten viscera
/ lying in a framework of bones.
| In the right background is large,
/ very filthy hog pen, which directly
| adjoins the slaughter house and into
which the slaughter offal is pushed
to be partly eaten b. the hogs. to
| rot, to purify, to create horrible
| odors and to breed flies ard vermin.
No. 2 is view of the COW car
| cass shown in No. 1 and also shows
some of the bones and refuse which
litter the entire premises.
No. is another view of the car