Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-05-27
SANDING THE CHICKENS
Feeders Work Swindle Involving 81,
100000 q Year.


New York faces q famine in live
poultry. Not a live chicken was sold
here yesterday, says a New York let
ter Of May %. Ordinarily on brisk
market days 125,Oo0 fowls are disposed
of. Yesterday Gansevoort Market did
not record single sale.
The jobbers who distribute live
poultry to the shops and the wagons
declined to buy a pound because the
receivers wouldn't bind themselves not
to stuff the crops Of their chickens
with weight producing sand and grav-
ell. Fifty angry jobbers yelled and
stormed around Gassevoort Market al
Fourteenth and West streets. BY the
time the stubborn receivers quit busi-
ness or an attempt to do business, a
small riot was boiling.
The jobbers got together early In
the morning and agreed not to buy
live poultry unless the receivers (the
fifteen or twenty big dealers who buy
poultry In the country and ship 1t here
in cars) agreed to fix prices before the
sand and gravel stuffing process be-
gan. The receivers declined to make
any such terms. Then the storm broke
Fifty excited men, supported by at
least 200 small dealers, shook their
fists at the importers. (
For blocks their cries Of Fix
,ortoo,tu iryTya orap,f huuipo 90 pdD q M
Give us an honest deal" could be
heard above the rumble Of traffic. Po-
licemen, expecting that blows would
be struck, edged toward the market
and kept wary eye on the elocution-
lists.
The result of the firmness Of the
combination Of jobbers was that twen-
ty cars of live poultry were not un-
loaded over in New Jersey. The chick
ems can stay there until next year, the
jobbers say, unless the receivers prom
ise to abandon their unfair feeding
scheme. Sixty-three 'ars Of poultry
are in sight this week, but the job -s
are firm in their determination not to
buy unless they are assured that they
will not have to pay from 10 cents to
IL cents extra for every fowl, because
of the load of sand and gravel it car
ries in its crop.
II they stand fast there will be no
live chickens procurable anywhere,
save at a few shops supplied by small,
Independent breeders from Long Is
land and Jersey. But these can't be-
gin to supply more than 1 per cent OF
the trade. Only three cars were un-
loaded yesterday and the chickens
were held in stores while the receivers
waited for the jobbers to knuckle un-
der.
It is estimated that the profits Of the
receivers from the extra weight they
obtain by sand and gravel feeding
amount to 100000 or more every
year. 1t used to be customary to feed
chickens that were received here from
the west all of the corn they could eat.
But that method soon became obso-
lete. There wasn't enough extra profit
in it, the jobbers say. So the receivers
adopted this scheme:
The night before the chickens were
to be unloaded the man In charge pre-
pared for them a supper Of thin meal
and red pepper That course merely
whetted their appetites and made them
thirsty. Then a mess Of soaked bread
and buttermilk mixed with sand and
gravel was prepared. The chickens ate
this ravenously Often they gained
from fourteen to sixteen ounces in
weight.
AS there were about 1000 hens to a
carload 1t was not unusual for the
weight of the whole carload to be in
creased $500 pounds. In dollars and
cents that meant over $500 extra profit
to every car. Dealers throughout the
city claim that all Of their profits have
been eaten up by the shrinkage In
weight of the chickens they bought
from the receivers. Very often chick
ems fed by the sand and gravel meth
cd sickened and died soon after they
passed from receiver to jobber and
from jobber to dealer.-New York
Sun.