Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1892 — MEAT FOR THE MILLION [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MEAT FOR THE MILLION

HOW IT IS SUPPLIED BY CHICAGO’S BIG THREE. C»n«e« Which Have Lo<l to the Enormous Growth of the Dressed Beef Business—lt Seriously Injures the Business of the Retail Butcher. Dr.-ssed Beef.

a—.■ HAT Chicago is the greatest meat -J market in the world, everybody l knows, yet few < have a conception of the vastness of jjßvChthr dressed beef SgrfSjU business done in Western metro °' 3 ' ° Some idea of the {enormity of the k^ J *j/j|dr< ssed i.eef trade jt/lin Chicago, writes i a corresp undent, may bega'nedfrom

the state:meat that 87(1,WOO.'ll 6 pounds < f dressed beef were forwarded from this market in IH9I, while 1,260,000 cases of canned meats were shipped during the same period. As the dressed beef business was only founded about twenty years ago, its rapid growth is remarkable. The father of the industry was the late George H. Hammond, of Detroit, but Aimour A Co., Swift A Co., and Nelson Morris A Co. are now the recognized leaders in the trade, among which they are known as the “big three,” because of their gigantc operations. Messrs. Swift and Mor. is do, in addi-

tlon to their domestic trade, a large export business, but Armour’s house confines its attention solely to the home markets, in which it has immense interests. All of these dressed beef shippers have their own refrigerator cars, the number owned by each ranging fiom 2,500 to 4,C00 cars. Naturally, these houses named are the heaviest buyers of the cattle arriving daily at the Union Stock Yards, where they take probably three-fourths of the cattle sold for slaughter. In addition to these purchases in Chicago, the concerns noted buy the majority of the

stock marketed at Kansas City and Omaha. As is well known, ah cattle are sold by live weight, except fin the case of milch cows or calves. The purchaser, therefore, has to be a better judge Of quality than of quantity, hence it Is not surprising tnat the buyers for some of these big houses command a larger salary than many a bank president earns. The classes of cattle shipped in may be defined as follows: First, the “expbrters,” which includes cattle suitable for Eastern markets, as well as for English ports. Second, the “dressed beef” steers, designed for the dressed

beef business. Third. “butcher stuff," composed of light steers and the better grade of cows. Fourth, “canners," which includes everything not good enough for butchering. Then, as an extra class, there are the range cattle, many of which are either put on to feed or taken by the dressed beef men for a second-grade beef;" while an enormous number of them,' and more especially those-trom Texas, are put into cans. The movement of cattle is almost entirely eastward. San Francisco, which is a large market, draws quite a number es cattle frdm California aud the adjoining States, but otherwise there-.js ■& con- , Usual movement toward the East, beginning at the Gulf of Mexico, extending to the barren plains of Arizona and from the sage brush valleys of Nevada aerthward into Montana, from which dietant pointe the work of shipping is a tebartons task. Prior to the introduction of the palace stock cars cattle in transit were unloaded at suitable halttag stations situated from 300 to 500 mitea apart, where high-pric<*d hfcy was avppliM .» feed the Stock, But within the past four years improved stock cars haw bean introduced, in which cattle «M be rue poetically any distance, as tiry era oonatrueted to allow the Mtianate to be ted and watered without ■WKS# aSStt 1- •' ’ «%-

unloading. Ou their arrival In Chicago the cattle bought for shipment are driven over to the shipping divisions, where they are loaded into cars and forwarded to their respective destinations. The dressed beef men generally allow their cattle to remain In the pens over night, driving them to the slaughterhouses next day after purchase. Arrived here they are driven Into large pens, thence along narrow pas-

■ sageways into separate compartments j just large enough to hold one bullock, where a man standing on the narrow I foot-path alove adroitly knocks the ani- : mal out of time by a well-directed blow lon the skull. Between each compartI ment and the slaughter-house is a liftj ing door which slides up mechanically, ' and through this aperture the steer is dragged by mean s of a chain passed ' around his horns. He is then properly : bled and is passed a'ong the iron runs

to the floorsmen nnd skinners. All the work in the slaughtering department is done by trained experts, each one having a single division of labor to perform. No part of the animal is wasted. The hides are removed so carefully that they bring a higher price than the common butcher’s hides; the guts are thoroughly cleansed and sold for sausage casings; the contents of the entrails are converted Into fertilizing substances; the livers and hearts are sliipped with the beef to different markets, where they are sold ito good advantage; "the bladders are dried and disposed of to druggists and other parties; the stomach makes tripe; the tongues are always in demand; the horna sell readily to the comb and knife-haft makers, while the shin bones are usually in good request for knife handles and backs for tooth and nail brushes.

The knuckle-bones are prepared for making acid phosphate, and for this design have a fair merchantable value. The blood is all utilized for different commercial purposes; the ox-tail trade is now a regular part of the traffic; the heads, after being trimmed, are sold for glue stock; the fat taken from the interior' of the bullock is converted into oleomargarine, under which name it is sold to fair advantage. Neatsfoot oil is made from the feet and the hoofs are ground and mixed with the other fertilizing substances. It is this advantageous utilization of the refuse and offal of the bullock that has been largely in- | strumental in the wonderful success of the dressed beef trade in Chicago. I The processes of dressing and cleaning the carcasses of the cattle slaught- : ered for the dressed beef trade are most interesting. After leaving the main slaughtering house, from which place, by the way, the visitor is glad to escape, I the carcAsses are taken along tne iron runways into the immense refrigerators, where they cool off in a temperature of 36 degrees Fahrenheit. One is impressed by the degree of cleanliness maintained in the establishment-after passing from the blood-stained floors of the butchering department. There is

not a speck of dirt noticeable in Ihe big chillinarTooms, the floors of which are covered with fresh, clean sawdust. In addition to the lot number attached to the carcass of each animal is a certificate of inspection placed there by one of Uncle Jerry Husk’s inspectors, who is stationed at the lifting door, through which the bullock is admitted to the slaughtering room, and who is a recent adjunct to the packing houses, where national as well as State inspection is enforced. The carcasses remain hanging in the ■ chilling-rooms from thirty-six to fortyj eight hours, after which they are run i out to the loading platforms, cut into ■ quarters and put in the refrigerator cars i ready for transmission to Eastern points. The care are kept at the same temperature as thre'.cdoling-rooms, and ! are iced twenty-four hours prior to using, i the process being-repeated, next mom- : ing. A "gang of expert cutters under . the charge of a competent foreman can | load eight care in an hour, Or an aver- , age of one car every seven and one-half ! minutes. Considering that thirty-eight carcasses are hung in each car, divided into quarters, the fore and hind quarters being placed at separate ends of the compartin' nt, this is pretty rapid work. Between Chicago and New York the

refrigerator cars are Iced three times, a corps of experts being stationed at the supply-houses along the various lines of road for this purpose. A train load of dressed beef starting from the Chicago yards on Monday will arive in New York the following Friday, and the Brooklyn or New Jersey householder may have for his piece de resistance at six o’clock dinner Friday night a tender, juicy roast of beef that six days previous was part of a lively steer cavorting around in the pens adjacent io the -Chicago slaughterhouses.

The dressed beef business can only subsist, in a wholesale way at least, at the great central markets of the country. The system is to a great extent an enlarged butchers' business, as it is supported by a host of retailers, who, instead of being butchers on the old style, have become merely meat cutters. In San Francisco there are no butchers, the city drawing its retail supplies of animal food from the hosts of meat cutters who buy their geo is from day to day from the wholesale slaughterer. So it is with the dressed beef interests in Chicago. So much meat is forwarded daily north, south, east and west, to be distributed at the different points where the beef, veal, pork or-mutton is in demand. The work is thoroughly system- , atized, for those engaged in it must be ' prepared to meet the demands of their customers. The “big three" have ! wholesale supply houses in every city of any size in the country, and it is said that within the past six months cne of the trio has established upward of one hundred of these depots in the principal cities of the United Kingdom, where the dressed beef interests are rapidly growing. This industry has naturally created a revolution among the repril butchers’ trade. All the butcher has to do now is to repair to the sTaughter-house, select his beef from lhe refrigerators, or contract for a daily or weekly supply to be sent him. At outside points he eallsat the refrigerator where the meats are unloaded from the cars, and there makes his. purchases. Formerly the’ retail butcher who did his own ki'ling had to have a much larger capital invested in his business than is now required, nor could he get his supplies so reasonably as he is now enabled to purchase them. In the first place, he had to employ a trained butcher to kill and dress his stock, which assistant was idle a good share of the time. If he killed at the yards the hi les had to be shipped back .to Chicago, the offal could not be utilized, and if his trade called only for fine meats he had to dispose of the rough stuff and least desirable parts of the animal as bed he. could. Under the prt sent system he can do a larger business on a much smaller capital; he need buy only that which can bo sold fb advantage, and he can make arrangements to have his particular grade of meatsleft hanging in the big chilling rooms to suit his own convenience. Every one who has visited the great packing houses at the Chicago Stock Yards has heard of the old joke told ■ anent the hog that the < nly part of him wasted is his “squeal.” The steer is not provided by nature with a squeal, and lie loses little breath by bellowing, so that the waste with him should be somewhat less than with the hog. The perusal of the following table will show in what proportions a 1,200 pound steer will dress: Pound«.| Pounds. S'des 660 Hoofs 5 Hl<l4 Hfl Sneeibreadß 2 Tallow 60 Rtnewe 4 Fortillcer 2 Liver 10 Heart 4 Totil >Ol Tongue fl Weight of steer... .1,2 0 Dried blood 4 Net 161 Har 1 bones 4 Horns 2 Waste 339 What chance has the old-style method of local butchering against this perfect system? Where the blood was allowed to run away, the head partially

neglected, the hoofs and shanks thrown to the hog pen, the entrails went the same road, and waste was apparent in every direction! Is it any wonder that the dressed beef trade, built up on this reversed order of things, has made such remarkable progress? It is a division of labor as well as a division of products; it finds for the producer a ready market at any and all seasons, and it undoubtedly benefits the consumer In all parts of the country, by giving him cheap as well as good 'beef that he could not obtain under the old system.

ISSIDE REERIGERATOR CARS

THE COOLING-ROOM.

ONLY FIT FOR CORN-REEF HASH.

IN THE TARDS.

DRESSING