No. 6 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 6l 



inclines to sneer at a declaration of need for cleanliness in this 

 connection. He says that what people don't know won't hurt them; 

 that the oU'euse is rarely against the health in any considerable meas- 

 ure; that mere sentiments alone are concerned and that it would be 

 a pity to disturb ignorance so blissful to the ultimate consumer. But 

 civilized beings are not satisfied with the rude kitchen and table 

 manners of the savage. The civilized man's eating is not merely a 

 mode of getting bodily nutriment, let us say. In the well-conducted 

 home, the table is the center of good cheer and no food will be 

 welcomed to the menu as to whose sanitary quality and history ther« 

 is even remote suspicion. Where food is domestically produced and 

 prepared, the cleanliness and soundness of the food and of the utensils 

 used in its preparation are matters of prime importance in every 

 well-conducted household. The people have a right to expect and 

 to make sure that when their food supplies are produced and more 

 or less fully prepared in centralized factories, the conditions of 

 soundness and cleanliness shall be maintained just as much as they 

 would be under the eye of the skillful housewife. Undoubtedly, rea- 

 sonable legislation designed to secure these conditions is regarded 

 as desirable by the average consumer. 



It is not here meant to imply that the general conditions of food 

 production 'and handling are gravely unsanitary or that exceedingly 

 undesirable food materials are used in preparing the staple products. 

 There are, however, many individual cases where the buildings in 

 which foods are manufactured are gravely unsanitary, where the care 

 of the persons of the employes is not what it should be, where water 

 supplies are unfit, where there is undesirable contact of the persons 

 of the employes with the food materials, where the foods in course of 

 preparation are not adequately protected from dust, flies, and other 

 contaminating agencies; and the existence of shops handling food 

 wares in ways undesirable from the sanitary standpoint, is a matter 

 of everyday knowledge. The far-sighted, enterprising food producers 

 and food vendors realize that the existence of such establishments 

 has a disproportionately large effect upon ])ublic confidence in all 

 foods that are not homemade, and that the result is a considerable 

 reduction in the volume of the trade which they would otherwise 

 secure. While they very naturally object to laws and general state- 

 ments which may reflect upon the conduct of their own establishments, 

 many are desirous of having offenses existing in less carefully con- 

 ducted factories and shops, reduced. As specific instances of this 

 nttitude upon the part of progressive food producers may be cited 

 the resolution adopted by the Pennsylvania Association of Ice Cream 

 Manufacturers in favor of the enactment of such sanitary measures 

 as shall correct the abuses in certain small ice cream factories in 

 densely populated parts of our cities; also the report of the Committee 



