Chapter 1

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Copyright, 1912, by Mrs. Elmer Black

A Terminal Market System

New York's Most Urgent Need

Some Observations, Comments and Comparisons of European Markets

_By_ Mrs. ELMER BLACK

Member of the Advisory Board of the New York Terminal Market Commission

Contents

Page

Foreword 3 The Markets of the United States 5 The Markets of the British Isles 5 The Markets of the German Empire 13 The Markets of France 23 The Markets of Austria-Hungary 29 The Markets of Holland 30 The Markets of Belgium 30 Comments 31

Illustrations

Covent Garden Market 6 Smithfield in the Olden Days 8 Delivering Meat at Smithfield Today 8 Inside Smithfield Market 10 Billingsgate Fish Market, London 12 Berlin's Terminal Market 14 Interior of the Berlin Central Market 16 Ground Plan of the Munich Market 18 Munich's Modern Terminal Market 20 The Paris Halles, exterior view 24 The Paris Halles; Keen Morning Buyers 26 A Drastic Inspection 28

Foreword

In the belief that the establishment of a first-class _Terminal Market_ system, worthy of twentieth century requirements, is a matter of vital importance to every family in New York, I have spent considerable time during the past few months investigating markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

As a result I am more than ever conscious of the need for an enlightened public opinion to support the efforts of the Terminal Market Commission to secure this benefit for our community. I am convinced that our fellow-citizens will approve the requisite expenditure once they are roused to a realization of the inadequacy of our food-distributing centers.

In the hope that my investigations may aid in the accomplishment of this reform, I have prepared these observations, comments and comparisons.

It is true that the problem of the high cost of living is afflicting the old lands of Europe, the newer countries like New Zealand, as well as our own wide territories of the United States. The causes vary, according to local conditions; but everywhere it is agreed that a potent force for the amelioration of the condition of the consumers is found in the establishment of efficient Terminal Markets under municipal control for all progressive cities. With wise administration, stringent inspection and sound safeguards, these municipal markets benefit both producers and consumers. They eliminate considerable intermediate expense, delay and confusion. Last but not least they return a profit to the city treasury.

It is because our New York markets achieve none of these beneficent results that I issue this plea for the establishment of an adequate _Terminal Market_ system. I appeal to all who have the welfare of their city at heart to add the force of their opinion to the accomplishment of this civic improvement.

United States

NEW YORK, with over 5,000,000 inhabitants, has no effective market system. The buildings are out of repair, there is little or no organization, and the superintendent has testified before the New York Food Investigation Commission (March 12, 1912) that on their administration last year there was _a loss to the city treasury of $80,000_. To that must be added due consideration of the inconvenience to the consumers, producers and dealers, and the extra cost of handling entailed by the lack of modern market methods. The city has almost quadrupled its population in a generation, but the markets remain about as they were. Many other cities in the United States not only testify to the value of municipal markets as a means for lowering prices to the consumer, but so guard their interests as to provide a very different balance sheet.

Boston has a profit on its markets of $60,000, Baltimore $50,000, New Orleans $79,000, Buffalo $44,000, Cleveland (Ohio) $27,507, Washington (D. C.) $7,000, Nashville (Tenn.) $8,200, Indianapolis $17,220, Rochester (N. Y.) $4,721, and St. Paul (Minn.) $4,085.

If the following facts concerning municipal markets are studied, also, it will be seen that no city in any way comparable to New York fails to make the municipal markets yield advantages both to the community and the city treasury.

The British Isles

LONDON naturally serves as a starting point for a tour of European investigation. The British capital has, indeed, features that render it comparable in a peculiar degree with New York. The population of both, including their outer ring of suburbs, is over five millions. In each case there is access to the open sea by means of a noble waterway over which passes the commerce of the seven seas. Railroads supplement the water-borne cargoes with home-grown produce, fresh from the farms for the use of urban kitchens.

London's markets do not afford the unbroken example of municipal control that they would if a new system were to be created at the present day. Precedent looms large in British administration and even now there are only two ways of establishing a market--by Parliamentary authority and Royal Charter. King Henry III covenanted by charter with the City of London not to grant permission to anyone else to set up a market within a radius of seven miles of the Guildhall, and this privilege was subsequently confirmed by a charter granted by Edward III in 1326. But of late years the City Corporation has waived its rights and allowed markets to be established in various districts wherever a real necessity has been shown to exist. In fact the markets of London have grown with the city, keeping pace with its requirements.

There remains, however, the fact that certain Corporation markets and Covent Garden market serve as great wholesale terminals, connected more or less unofficially with the numerous local markets in the outlying districts.

Chief among the Corporation markets is Smithfield, covering about eight acres, and costing altogether $1,940,000. There are to be found wholesale meat, poultry and provision markets, with sections for the sale, wholesale and retail, of vegetables and fish. In the last twenty years the development of cold storage processes has lowered the quantity of home-killed meat and remarkably increased the importation of refrigerated supplies. Last year the wholesale market disposed of 433,723 tons of meat, of which 77.2 per cent came from overseas.

Ten years ago the United States supplied 41 per cent of the Smithfield meat, but now these supplies have fallen off enormously and the last report of the Markets Committee says: "The United States, in particular for domestic needs, is within measurable distance of becoming a competitor with England for the output of South America." South America and Australasia are, indeed, the chief producers today for the British market.

This has developed a great cold storage business in London. All told London can accommodate 3,032,000 carcases of mutton, reckoning each carcase at 36 pounds. Over 41 per cent of England's imported meat passes through Smithfield, and railroad access is arranged to the heart of the market. The Great Northern Railway Company has a lease from the corporation on 100,000 feet of basement works under the meat market, with hydraulic lifts to the level of the market hall, and inclined roadways for vehicular traffic.

Most of the tenants at Smithfield are commission salesmen, who pay weekly rents for their shops and stalls at space rates, all the fittings being supplied. Last year these rents brought in $427,920. There is a toll of a farthing on every 21 pounds of meat sold, which together with cold storage, weighing and other charges amounted in the same period to $241,635. The meat sales are entirely wholesale, except on Saturday afternoons, when there is a retail "People's Market," where thousands of the very poor buy cheap joints.

The inspection is very strict, every precaution is taken to ensure cleanliness, and breaches of the regulations are punished by fines or imprisonment. All condemned carcases are sent to a patent Podewill destructor to be reduced by steam pressure and rolling to a powder, which is disposed of as an agricultural fertilizer.

On these central meat markets there is a _profit of about $100,000_.

The Corporation also controls a great live cattle market at Islington, covering seventy-five acres. Over $2,500,000 have been spent on this market and the modern slaughterhouses attached thereto. These slaughterhouses are not regarded as a remunerative concern, but are provided because they afford hygienic methods, and private slaughterhouses in London are decreasing rapidly. Last year 37,670 cattle, 101,646 sheep, 11,722 calves and 34,981 swine were slaughtered there, the charges being 36 cents a head for cattle, 4 cents for sheep, 8 cents for calves, and 12 cents for hogs. Mainly on account of the extensions and improvements, this market is not being run at a profit at present, but its public utility is held to justify the outlay. Nor does the Deptford Cattle market, of thirty acres, maintained on the banks of the Thames to deal with live cattle imported from abroad, pay its way. But there has been a serious decline in imported stock in late years, especially from America. At this market extreme precautions are taken to prevent the entry of cattle disease that might spread infection to British flocks and herds. All animals landed there must be slaughtered within ten days and submitted to rigid inspection. All hides and offal are immediately disinfected. Five hundred cattle can be unloaded from vessels at Deptford in twenty minutes. Last year 104,351 animals were killed, the meat being sent for sale to Smithfield and Whitechapel.

Billingsgate, the famous fish market of London, is also administered by the Corporation. Its records cover over six hundred years. It is hampered by narrow street approaches, but a very expeditious system of direct delivery of fish from the Thames side of the market building enables the licensed auctioneers to dispose of supplies very quickly. Steam carriers collect the fish from the fleets around the coast and deliver them packed in ice at Billingsgate every night. Billingsgate market has cost the city $1,600,000. Stand prices are high, but there is keen competition whenever a vacancy occurs. Last year the receipts amounted to $182,455. The auctioneers dealt with 194,477 tons of fish, of which 120,905 were water-borne and 73,572 land-borne. _The City profited to the extent of over $40,000_ on this fish trade.

On the wholesale and retail meat, fruit, vegetable and fish market at Leadenhall there is also a profit of over $5,000.

_On the entire municipal market enterprises of the city there is a profit of $156,000._ The markets are regarded with especial interest by the Corporation and the Committee which regulates them is considered one of the most important in the whole administration of the city. In order to keep abreast of the times most of the profit is expended on improvements and extensions.

Covent Garden, London's great fruit, flower and vegetable market, is owned by the Duke of Bedford, whose family have held it for hundreds of years. In the past century they have spent $730,000 on extensions and improvements. Of the present modern buildings, the fruit hall cost $170,000 and the flower building $243,000. Formerly the producers were chiefly concerned in the market, holding their stands at a yearly rental. But with the expansion of London the growers have gradually given place to dealers and commission men, who pay twenty-five cents a day per square foot of space, and on the produce, at a regular scale, according to its nature. On flowers there is no toll, but each stand holder pays a fixed rental. Though this market has direct access neither to river nor railroad, it still retains its premier position among the wholesale markets of England. As the approaches are extremely narrow, most of the produce has to be carried on the heads of hundreds of porters from the wagons outside into the market buildings. As it is under private ownership, no figures are issued, but there is known to be a huge profit on the market. For outer London there are fruit and vegetable markets at Stratford, in the east, Kew in the west, the Borough in the south and two railroad markets in the north.

BIRMINGHAM, England's chief midland city, has owned its markets since 1824, administering them through a markets and fairs committee. Since 1908 the profits have been somewhat reduced, owing to outlay on improvements and extensions; but although the city has expended $2,156,362 on the markets, the profits have paid off more than half of that indebtedness, besides relieving taxation in other directions.

Not far away is the small city of KIDDERMINSTER, that may be mentioned as affording a demonstration of provincial municipal enterprise, under more restricted conditions. On its vegetable market it makes a _profit of $1,000_, and on its butter market _a profit of $1,500_. The population of the city is only 25,000. Another midland city, WOLVERHAMPTON, makes a _profit of nearly $20,000_.

LIVERPOOL, the great northern port on the Mersey, has spent $1,242,534 on six municipal markets. The only market to lose money is the cattle market, which shows a deficit of $8,000. Liverpool has a cold storage capacity for 2,176,000 carcases. On the whole municipal market enterprise, in this city of 700,000 people, there is an average annual _profit of $80,000_.

MANCHESTER serves not only its own area but surrounding industrial centers, with a total population of nearly 8,000,000. There are twelve markets and four slaughterhouses. Since 1868 the city has benefited by their administration to the extent of _$3,250,000 profit_.

Next to that of London, the fish market here is the largest in England. Its annual profit is well over $10,000, in addition to heavy extension payments in late years.

DUBLIN, the capital of what is often called 'the distressful isle,' makes _a profit of $14,000_ on the food market and _$12,000 more_ on the cattle market, while EDINBURGH, Scotland's chief city, makes about _$15,000 a year on municipal markets_.

Statistics are available of something like 150 other British towns and cities, ranging from a population of 5,000 upwards, where there is the conviction born of experience that municipal markets pay not merely in profits, but in convenience to the community, and they have a powerful influence in keeping prices down.

Germany

Perhaps more than any other country in the world Germany places reliance on municipal markets, because of the peculiar pressure of the problem of the high cost of living in the cities of the Fatherland. On several occasions, during the last twelve months, the butchers' stalls have been raided by women in protest against the ten per cent increase in one year on the price of meat. And when, to meet the clamor, the government reduced the hitherto prohibitive import duties on meat by one-half and the inland railroad charges by one-third, it was on condition that the meat brought in should be for delivery to municipal markets or co-operative societies only. The result has been an immediate fall in retail prices ranging up to fifty per cent.

BERLIN'S two million people since 1886 have had a splendid terminal market on the Alexanderplatz, consisting of two great adjoining halls, with direct access to the city railroad. One of these halls is entirely wholesale, while the other is partly wholesale and partly retail. Meat, fish, fruit and vegetables are dealt with under the same roof by upwards of 2,000 producers and dealers.

The whole market cost $7,250,000, of which $1,920,711 was for the main market and $4,852,862 was for the slaughterhouses, which are most elaborately equipped to ensure sanitation and cleanliness. Great as the market is, the pressure of business has grown so much that a project is on foot to construct more accommodation at a cost of $15,000,000. The market is maintained by stand rentals and administrative charges and by a fund established for the improvement and extension of the system. On the entire enterprise, when all charges have been met and interest paid, there is _a profit of over $135,000 a year_.

A committee of eleven, partly city councillors and partly selected representatives of the public, administer the markets with ninety-three officials to ensure the carrying out of their orders. The regulations are most elaborate, especially as regards the inspection of foods, which is conducted by a department having a staff of six hundred.

A healthy competition is created by the system of sales, which may be conducted by the producer himself, or through an approved wholesale dealer, or through one of the six municipal sales commissioners. These municipal sales commissioners have to give bonds on appointment and are not allowed to have any interest in the trade of the market beyond a small percentage on sales. Producers living at a distance can have their business carried through by them under conditions so well understood and respected as to ensure confidence. Though the municipal sales commissioners handle less than a quarter of the sales, they nevertheless act as a check on the private dealers, especially as they issue a regular report on the average wholesale prices. Moreover the purchasers benefit by these market arrangements, for if they buy from a regularly authorized dealer they can file a claim with the administration if the supplies delivered are faulty and if their case is proved the account will be rectified.

About fifty railroad car loads can be handled at once at the market, but when extended accommodation is provided it is intended to deal with two hundred carloads simultaneously. On supplies thus delivered a railroad tax is collected from the receivers for maintaining rail connections, and this yields an annual profit of $11,000.

Of the stand holders, nine-tenths are monthly tenants, and the remainder pay by the day. The highest charge is 9.5 cents per square meter a day for meat stalls. The fish sold comes mainly from Geestemunde, at the mouth of the Weser, and is sold under the strictest conditions, only a small commission being allowed to be added by the dealers.

The slaughterhouses deal with 800 wagons daily and for the use of the butchers and the market generally 2,000 square meters of distilled water are produced every day, valued at four cents the square meter. Eight thousand pipes conduct the water to every part of the market. To ensure cleanliness, bathrooms and rooms for drying clothes are established for the use of the butchers, who are charged two and a half cents a bath. In inspecting the carcases the veterinaries take the most minute precautions. From every animal four samples are taken, at different parts of the body, and each of these samples is submitted to tests for twenty minutes.

In an average year 14,000 carcases are condemned and destroyed, as well as 400,000 diseased parts. Whenever possible the inspectors cut away diseased portions, and the remainder of the carcase, after being sterilized, is sent to the markets known as the Freibank, for sale to the very poor. This proportion is not so startling when it is considered that something like two million animals are slaughtered every year, of which more than half are pigs. Until recently Germany used to export a large number of prime animals to the London market, but the demands of home consumers now prevent this and the export trade has practically ceased. In fact Germany, in common with the rest of Europe, is now competing for the world's refrigerated supplies.

Storm doors and windbreaks are provided at the entrances to the markets and wagons are only allowed inside at certain hours and through specified doorways. Thus there is an absence of dust, and a carefully arranged series of windows ensure ample ventilation. All dealers have to unpack their stock at least once every seven days, for the destruction of unsound articles. All supplies of unripe fruit, horseflesh and artificial butter have to carry labels disclosing their real nature. Attached to the market is a hospital with skilled attendance, for cases of sickness or injury happening on the market premises.

As in most other centers, the establishment of the market led to the peddlers entering into outside competition. They bought their supplies wholesale inside, and then offered them cheaply outside, free from stand rentals and other charges. This menace to the prosperity of the market grew so great that the peddlers' traffic in adjacent streets was prohibited and strictly limited elsewhere. This measure, in fact, is deemed essential in every city where municipal markets are conducted successfully.

COLOGNE completed a million dollar market in 1904, with a cold storage plant and connections with the state and narrow gauge railways. Nearly half the space is taken up by wholesale dealers in fruit and vegetables.

The chief fault of the market is the remoteness from the center of the town. At first it had a great success but, on this account, it has not been entirely maintained. Encouraged by that initial prosperity, the city authorities bought a nearer site, but the subsequent decrease in the market's popularity has caused the postponement of extensions. Though the market does not pay the five per cent on capital that is required, the present administration, even with its drawbacks, does succeed in making a profit of about three per cent on the capital invested, last year's income amounting to $535,200.