Arizona republican., 1913-04-16
PARIS MAYOR TELLS OF
 MUNICIPAL ABA110|R
Strong Endorsement of City Controlled Slaughter Houses Comes From
 Texas City.

of the former session providing for municipal slaughter houses under state control. During the last session there was a continued fight on this bill and It was only with difficulty that the senator was able to secure it's passage through the senate. When the bill reached the house it died in committee largely because of the general opinion that the attorney general had declared the bill to be unconstitutional. When it became known that there was fight in Arizona upon the proposition of a municipal abbatoir the mayor of Paris, Texas, a city of similar size to PhOe niv, wrote the following letter, to Sen ator Hughes
 Paris, Texas. April 10, 1913 Senator Jno T. Hughes,
 Phoenix, Ariz.
 Dear Sir:
 By way of reply, beg to advise you that from a financial standpoint, it has never been our purpose to make the municipal plant at Paris a money making institution. We figure to do slaughtering. cold storage and delivery at as near actual cost as possible to maintain our plant.
 Before we had a plant of this char acter, each butcher had a private slaughter house in isolated sections be- yond the suburbs of the city. The sur roundings, without d single exception, were not only filthy but hidous. Dur ing the summer months, flies in untold
 
 slaughter houses. No provision of any kind was made for screening the car casses during the slaughtering process stolen cattle was frequently run in these isolated slaughter houses. butch cred and sold and the crime covered up There are absolutely no sort of sani- tary restraint. The public were abso- lutely at the mercy of the commercial spirit of the butcher. old cattle, abso- lutely unfit for food were sometimes in fact often, slaughtered by unprin- cipled butchers. Even those with lum = py jaw and other diseases have been slaughtered also.
 My judgment is that the man doesn't live who could review conditions as they prevailed here previous to the establishment of a municipal abattOir and see them as they now exist, who would not reach with us the conclusion that a municipal abattoir is practically indispensable We have had visitors here from as far away as Calgary, Can ada. Almost every state in the union have sent representatives. The state of Mississippi sent their agricultura commissioner. MT Blakeslee, who gave us q most exhaustive investigation prepared a bulletin upon his return tc Jackson. which has been extensively published in Mississippi. in which ht recommends the establishment o county municipal plants in the inter est of the farmers. He hopes to ac- cOmplish by such plant the successful | curing of meat without the annual los. which is sustained so constantly by tho southern country. caused by warn weather during the winter months The city of Jackson, Mississippi, a l the same time sent a delegation [, | visit our plant. During a discussion | in that city. it was my pleasure to ad dress the headth board touching the of | flee and function of municipal abat 1 toir. The butchers in that city, as the! do in many other cities, oppose it. Gu 1 best butchers in Paris favor it. bu small dealers and unprincipled mel | have on various occasions have ha' 1 protests of one kind or another | Durham. N. C.; Beaumont, Texas l Austin. Fl Paso and numerous othe cities that I could mention by turning l f., Iot alrna6X- ar r now in the act of installing plant 1 similar to ours.
 1 If your measure is defeated at thi l time, it will only be a temporary de | feat. Municipal abbatOirs will dot tn 1 whole face of the United States within | the next five years. Since we hay 1 awakened to the necessity of protectin ] our food supply against flies and filtf | the abattoir has became an absolut l necessity. There has been no advanc | in the price of meat due to the install | lation of our plant The fact is tha | all the reliable butchers admit that W kill, refrigerate and deliver meat O the hooks in their shops cheaper tha l theV can do it as individuals. This is a story which I have told s l n1ucn anu to SD many pcOple, anu 1 seems so clear and so reasonable an | has been verified by me in every phas 1 so often, that I wonder that anybOd 1 should ever hesitate a single momen to endorse plant which is nothin more Or less than thoroughly sanitar handling of meat in the presence of in | spectors and officers whose duty it to protect the public against unWhole some and contaminated food. If thes | provisions are not made. the patroniZ
 ing public are placed solely at tn mercy of the commercial spirit of tn butcher.
 If I can be of further service to 70,
 remember it is only necessary to ca on me.
 Yours very truly.