Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1888 — BUSINESS IN OLD BONES. [ARTICLE]

BUSINESS IN OLD BONES.

People Who Are Satisfied to Make Fortunes Out of Refuse. Chicago Mail. ' Of all the products that come into the 1 ' Chicago market beef is ts the most effectually utilized. Fiom the time a beef leaves the pasture until its steaks are' served by some fashionable caterer, if, has passed through several thousand hands, and has contributed either directly or indirectly to several hundred distinct and seperate industries. In no city in the world is the principle of the division of labor more strikingly exemplified than in Chicago, with her manifold industries dependent on the traffic in beef. One would naturally suppose tha.t bjeef was so plentiful and cheap in a central market like Chicago that no one would think of making a special business of utilizing what in many cities is cast away as refuse. But the very fact that Chicago is so great a beef market renders it possible for almost every ounce of beef to be put to some practical use. There has grown up in this city with-. in the past ten years the largest bone and tallow industries in this country. These industries have not only served to build up immense private fortunes, but, as an officer of the board of health said to a Mail reporter recently, the}' have been of untold value to Chicago in a sanitary point of view.

This may seem at first thought a curious statement. But the explanation is simple. A bone and tallow factory is not a desirable neighbor, as every one knows who has ever had the misfortune to live within scenting distance of such an establishment and yet the odor is neither so unpleasant nor nearly so - un ; wholesome as many other exhalations from the stock yards. The bone and tallow factory serves as a convenient repository and crematory of the offal from the butcher shops. In a city like Chicago there must necessarily be at every large butcher-shop a large amount of good meat remaining over each day unsold. To remove this meat to some suburban dumping-place would entail considerable expense on the butcher, and he would in many instances be tempted to let economic considerations take preference over regard for public health. This unused meat ought in the summer time to be removed regularly every day. There appears to be no city ordinance bearing directly on this point, and to enforce ap ordiance of this kind would be the next thing to an impossibility. The dealer in bones buys of the butcher whatever is worth paying for in the way of bones, horns, hoofs, hide, tallow, meat, and hauls it away, and. often gets for the mere hauling away meat that would soon become a nuisance to the butcher, but which can be turned to some practical account at the tallow factory. All. of the leading butchers of Chicago have now come to depend on the bone.and tallow dealers to relieve them of what they cannot dispose of to their regular customers. To facilitate in ascertaining the price of the commodity it is usual for the butcher to sort it. For instance, he puts all the kidney suefdn one barrel, the flank-tallow in another, the soupbones in another, and the waste meat in another. These are all sorted in the order of val ue. If life butcher"' fails todo the sortingliiroself, hqjs obliged to sell for a lower price, as the work of sorting after the stufF is once mixed is both difficult and unpleasant and frequently cost more than it is really worth. The bone and tallow dealer sends out his wagons every day to different parts of the city to buy up the butchers’ refuse. Each wagon has a regular route and makes regular trips at stated intervals. The loads are brought into factory and distributed to appropriate places. All of the tallow is put into a vast caldron and rendered into the form in which it is found in commerce.! There are a number of steps in the refining process, but they vary according to the purity of the article when it comes into the factory. * The bones form a curious collection, and suggest at once the prophet’s vision in the old testament. Here are the bleached skills of oxen, with yaWning jaws, grinning teeth, and ernptj sockets. They seem almost to speak from out their grim receptacle some legend of the Humane society. Occasionally a huge skull happens to have a pair of crossbones near it, and suggests the ghoulish emblem of the death’s head. The bones are of all sizes and ages. There are the drylxmes that have lain bleaching for months on the prairie and have been gathered by some economic farmer and shipped to Chicago for a fe w cents more than paid the freight Then there are the juicy soup-bones fresh from the butcher-shop. But these must go through many transformations before they are ready forthe market. First they are cooked and the grease all extracted. This grease is converted into lubicating oils. The bones are next put to soak in a tank , with water running constansly in and out. Thus they are cleaned. When all greasy impurities are removed the bones are laid out to dry and are ready- to join company with their congeners of the plans. They are dropped into a gigantic hopper and ground to a coarse flour dust. The mill grinds with a hungry greed and rarely receives a mouthful too difficult for its power of mastication. The bone dust is weighed, bagged, sorted, and shipped to ’

all parts of the country where fertilizing material is needed. One of the most valuabe products of the establishment is glue. This is made of the hoofs of cattle. There is a secret process in its manufacture that is always carefully guarded and is known to only one man and a few employes in this city. This is Ira.C. Darling. His is one of those peculiar trade secrets that no patent right would properly protect. In this, it resembles the secret of making popceTaih, possessed only by the Meissen (Saxony) porcelain potters. The hoofs are subjected to some process by which they are turned into liquid? This liquid comes out resembling in color and consistency New Orleans molasses. It is run into cooling pans, Where it becomes partially solid. Then it is tut into_ cakes like gingerbread and allowed to harden, and is then broken into * small pieces and placed in barrels ready to be shipped. **• The Horns,furnish in themselves material for two or three different indus tries. The large, curving horns of Texae cattle are made, into house ornaments Scarcely a well-furnished house in the town of Lake is without its household arms in the form of one of these handsomely finished ornaments. The horns are also used for- making ornamenta. chairs and other pieces of furniture, s taste for which has become of late years exceedingly widespread. The ordinary horns are turned into buttons of all kinds, and 1 unite*)’ and fishers’ furnishings. ; -..-..1