280 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



foreign country to which it is exported. No preservatives or chem- 

 icals other than common salt, sugar, wood smoke, vinegar, pure 

 spices and saltpeter may be used in any meat or meat-food product 

 bearing the legend, "U. iS. Inspected and Passed." 



The law provides that all carcasses or parts which, upon post- 

 mortem, are found to be sound, healthful, wholesome and tit for 

 human food, shall be labeled "Inspected and Passed." This require- 

 ment of the law is strictly followed. 



All establishments are required to label with the words, "Inspect- 

 ed and Passed." All pots, cans, tins, canvas or other receptacle, or 

 covering of meat-food products prepared under the law, and no 

 meat-food product is allowed to be sold or offered for sale by any 

 person, firm or corporation, in interstate or foreign commerce un- 

 der any false or deceptive name. The effect of this interpretation is 

 that when one purchases a can of lard bearing the words "pure lard" 

 and the legend "U. S. Inspected and Passed," under the act of June 

 30, 1906, he may be sure that he is actually receiving more pure lard 

 rendered from the clean, sweet, fat or healthy animals. When a can 

 bearing the legend is marked "Veal loaf," the nfeat constituent is 

 veal, and not pork. Potted ham is ham, and not minced dried beef. 



Inspectors are forbidden to label any carcass, or any part thereof, 

 or meat-food product therefrom, until the same shall have been 

 actually inspected and found to be sound, healthful and wholesome, 

 and lit for human food, to have been prepared under proper sanitary 

 conditions, and to contain no dyes, chemicals or preservatives or 

 ingredients which render such meat or meat-food products unfit for 

 human food. An important feature of the labeling regulations is 

 that each establishment has an official number, and this number 

 must be placed upon each container of meat-food products sent out 

 from that establishment. Thus the establishment which prepared 

 the meat-food product can be identified at any time. It is a violation 

 of law, punishable by imprisonment and a heavy fine, to forge, coun- 

 terfeit, simulate or falsely represent, or, without proper authority, to 

 use, fail to use or detach, or to knowingly or wrongfully alter, deface 

 or destroy, or fail to deface or destroy any of the certificates, marks, 

 stamps, tags, labels or other identification devices provided for by 

 the law, or by the rules of the Secretary. 



A retail butcher or retail dealer is required to submit his plant 

 to sanitary inspection by the department. If the plant proves to 

 be sanitary and the business is of a character that it can properly 

 be called retail, he receives an exemption permit from the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture. Two thousand five hundred and fifty permits 

 of this nature have been issued, allovN'ing retail butchers and retail 

 dealers to supply their customers in interstate trade. 



When the shipment of a retail butcher or a dealer is offered for 

 interstate transportation, the retailer is required to give a certificate 

 to the carrier that he is a retail butcher or retail dealer, that he is 

 shipping the meat to supply a customer, and that the meat is sound, 

 healfhful and wholesome, and fit for human food. These certificates 

 are delivered in duplicate to the carrier, who transmits one copy to 

 the Department of Agriculture, where the amount of description 

 of the shipment arc listed against the permit, and thus the depart- 

 ment IS informed exactly of the character and amount of the ship- 

 ments made by each retail butcher or retail dealer under permit. 



