Health and Temperance by C. P. Bollman

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 17.

Health and Temperance.

By C. P. Bollman

Choice Tidbits for the Table.

THE following item, clipped from an Oakland daily of recent date, will be of interest to those who buy fowls or eggs from city markets:—

“DUCK FEED.

“This morning, in Justice Nusbaumer's court, John Corges, a duck merchant, pleaded guilty to maintaining a nuisance and was fined one dollar. Corges was accused of piling up offal from the slaughter house and allowing it to rot into maggots, which he fed to his ducks. Corges promised to feed his ducks on less nutritious food hereafter, that the odor of the maggity meat might not offend the nostrils of his neighbors.”

And this is not an isolated case: it is the general practice of a certain class of poultry raisers to feed their fowls in this way. Only a few days since, the writer was informed of a case near this city where a man keeps a dead horse or two constantly in his chicken yard, in order that his fowls may feed upon the putrefying flesh, and fatten upon the maggots which it produces.

What choice tidbits for the table must those carrion-fed fowls make? And what delicious eggs, composed largely of the albumen extracted from maggots and putrid horse flesh! Bah! Will the greed of those who produce food for our cities ever be curbed? and will the greediness which leads people to unquestioningly devour all sorts of dietetic abominations, ever cease? C. P. BOLLMAN.