Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-04-25
CARLOAD or ONIONS
DUMPED On MEADOWS
Official Jersey Aroused
Over Wilful Waste.
10000 Pounds of
High-Priced. Veget-
able Thrown Away
State and Federal Au-
thorities Investigate
ing.

With red onions selling at from IL to
16 cents pound, six to eight times the
prices quoted before the war, some
body had q whole carload, about 40, 1000
pounds, dumped into the Jersey
meadows, Newark. alongside the tracks
of the Waverly and Passaic branch of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, some time
April IS. For weeks Newark, n j..
has been in patriotic ferVOr over
backyard gardens and the prevention
of home waste, and the cutting down
of hotel menus. and there has even
hecn an agitation to save the hops
from which beer is made--all aspects
of a wartime food economy-and yet
some one directed the wilful waste of
$4,000 worth of onions, just as food
spectators used to do Ito keep up
prices" apparently.
Commuters saw the onions spread
over an area of 1000 square feet and
they gossiped among themselves until
several telephOned Newark newspaper
offices to learn why so many good red
onions had been condemned. The
newspaper Offices began asking ques-
tons of District Attorney Lynch and
Marshal Boschweiler, both United
States officials They could give no
reason for the waste and Mr.. Lynch
said he would notify the Interstate
Commerce Commission. so that an in
vestigation might be started.
The Pennsylvania Railroad officials
were next questioned, but they pro-
fessed to be ignorant on onions. For a
busy freight traffic managers office to
know any details about a carload OF
onions, particularly a carload of onions
no longer in car, without the in
quirer having any clue as to shipper or
consignee was to expect more informa-
ton than could be furnished off-hand.
The railroad officials did suggest that
the onions might have been condemned
by the health authorities, municipal,
state. or Federal.
Were Not Condemned.
But the Food and Drugs Bureau of
the Newark Board of Health declared
that 1t had condemned no onions for
long, long time, and the officials added
that even If it had done So such
large quantity would have been sorted
over pretty carefully, in these days of
IL and 16 cent onions, to save any that
were unspoiled.
Quantities of the onions appeared to
be perfectly sound and wholesome OF
course, If they had been frozen and
had then thawed they would still have
seemed superfically sound. But
photographers who visited the onion
dumping ground to take pictures of
the waste of foodstuff and some rail-
road men who gathered baskets and
paper containers of the vegetable. de-
clared that most of the onions were
sound and edible. apparently had not
been touched by frost. and the few
that were soft and mushy had evil
IDENTIFY ben made SO by exposure to the
hot April sun alternating with night
ly moisture.
One explanation offered was that a
food speculator had found himself
hung up with a carload of onions
that was depreciating in value because
new Texas onions were on their way
to market. Rather than accept lower
prices, the Spectator might have elect
ed to dump the old onions on the
meadows so that a large quantity in
the market would not force lowered
prices. If there be such Spectator,
and he can be identified. he had better.