19O9 MILK COMMISSION. 51 



supply was made the strong feature. Soon the territory shipping milk to the 

 city was divided into districts and sixteen country inspectors were at work with the 

 result that in 1907 there were 22,500 inspections of dairy barns and 8,900 in- 

 spections' of milk receiving and shipping stations. The Department did not claim 

 any real "authority" to inspect outside the municipality of Xew York, but they 

 did claim the authority to designate the conditions under which milk should be 

 produced and handled before it was admitted to New York, in proof of which 

 over 41,000 quarts of milk were destroyed in 1907 because of being either over 50 

 degrees temperature, being sour or being adulterated. While some objection was 

 offered at first to the inspection of the farms and the inspectors were dubbed "Dar- 

 lington's Devils/' it did not prove either general or enduring, and the inspection 

 has now come to be looked upon as a distinct advantage. The farms by the score 

 card last year averaged 57 per cent, and this year it is expected they will average 

 ten points higher. But the usefulness of inspection with the score card system 

 has been demonstrated in other concrete forms. For instance, some of the larger 

 milk companies have given notice that the whole contract price will be paid only 

 to those dairies scoring 60 per cent, or over, a lower price will be paid to dairies 

 rating below 60 per cent, and no milk to be accepted from any dairy not scoring 

 50. Thus a good score has a commercial value, and this is further taken into 

 consideration in the sale or rental of the farm. By way of educational influence, 

 the milk inspectors deliver addresses at Grange meetings, at Farmers' Institutes, 

 and before Agricultural Societies, Boards of Trade and Departments of Health. 

 That this is not driving men out of the dairy business is shown by the fact that 

 there are now more than 5,000 more farms supplying New York than when the 

 inspection was first adopted. Then, too, inspection of the receiving and shipping 

 facilities and the large distributing plants and small stores is maintained vigorously. 



MILK STORES IN THE SLUMS. 



Members of your Commission accompanied one of the inspectors on some of 

 his rounds in one of the poorest and most congested sections of New York. Milk 

 is sold from cans in quantities of from one-half pint up, in stores which also serve 

 their customers with groceries, cheese, butter, eggs, meat, vegetables, fish and num- 

 erous other household necessities. Little do these people uneducated foreigners 

 most of them know of hygiene or bacteria, and such conditions are the despair 

 of sanitarians. Back of one little store was a living-room, perhaps ten by twelve 

 feet; off this room was a disgusting, ill-sm ( elling lavatory, which also served as 

 the sole passageway to the single bedroom, about six by ten in size, dank, low and 

 without light, without air, without sunshine. Here human beings lived and did 

 business 1 and here milk was s'old. It would be idle to expect anything like perfec- 

 tion, and yet it was evident that the vendors, even though they could speak little 

 English, had a healthy respect for the milk inspector, a respect- probably born of 

 police court experience which is notoriously expensive. It was evident also that 

 through careful supervision the milk was handled in a manner which practically 

 assured its being at least purer than the surrounding atmosphere. In the first 

 place the milk cans, which are of course covered, are kept in round wooden tubs 

 surrounded by ice. These tubs are also kept covered and are placed at the front 

 of the store. In fact there is not supposed to be any passageway between the store 

 and living room, though this ordinance is sometimes evaded. However, by keeping 

 the milk cans in covered ice tubs at the front of the store, it is kept from coming 

 in contact with other commodities. Then, in the second place, the vendors are 



