Show r UP URUGUAY RIVERA RIVER-A Visit to a WorldFamous Manufactory Man-ufactory AN UNSENTIMENTAL EXPEDITION How Baron Llebljra Extract of Meat Is Hade A largo Plant That Has n BIg Export FRAT BENTOS Urguay Feb10Special Correspondence of THE SUNDAY HERALD I must be1 matter of interest to the thousands of invalids all over the world who are dally fed on extract of meat to Learn something of how and where the strangely stimulating molasseslike substance sub-stance is made Everybody knows that the highly condensed preparation that I comes put up in small white jars was in ycn LUU uy uuruu Justus i uiueg the eminent German chemist that i is universally uni-versally used in hospitals and prescribed by physicians as a tonic for the debilitated rather than as an article of food although it is also largely employed as a foundation for variouii soups sauces and made dishes and for flavoring roasts stews game and fish But most people believevthat it is still manufactured in Antwerp as formerly for-merly and find themselves puzzled by the English trade mark A few years ago a British company purchased the business which Herr Leibig had founded half a century before and in 1SSG transferred the works to distant Urguny An idea of the magnitude joi the industry may be gained from the fact that the company com-pany claim to sell 8000000 jars of the extract ex-tract every year and that SO ship loads of It are annually sent from this manufactory to Europe Each pound of extract is guaranteed guar-anteed to contain enough substance to prepare pre-pare 100 portions of soup equal in strength to that obtained by boiling 45 pounds of meat for several hours And thus we may infer how i was that the wieo man who centuries ago declared there was nothing now under the suu is recorded in scrip ture as having eaten the strength of an ox every day I A traveler in this portion I of South America will find it worth the I the slight expenditure of time and money required to visit these famous works although a more unsentimental unsentmentai expenditure expendi-ture cannot well bo imagined or one more trying to sensitive nerves before it is fin ished Sail up the Rio de In Plata half a days journey in a northwesterly direction the shores invisible on a cloudy day and the billows yet so boisterous that you 1 find it difficult to believe they are not oi the ocean wild and wideturn suddenly into the Rio Uruguay and sail due north another half day and at length you wili Iconic I-conic to Fray Bentos a little town on the Uruguayan shore of tho mighty stream which is here several miles wide and with a very strong and rapid current in its hurried hur-ried rush to the sea Having passed sev mn hn rMl n r < u uuuuu UU < VL UVUULunous ana parently unoccupied country with ap and there an insignificant village whose Inhabitants seem to be all dead or gone a visiting about the only signs of lilo being a few lean dogs blinking lazily in the sun you are amazed to see in thin remote interior in-terior a crowd of ships and steamers Hoat ing the flags of England Germany France Italy and various South American countries coun-tries anchored in front of this equally in signilicantlooking village And in truth tnoro is nothingabout Fray Bentos whatever what-ever except the Leibig factories and they are a mile away on a high bold promontory jutting out into the river But no better place could be found in which a weary journalist may rest awhile from traveling post up her note books and prepare for pastures new The town occupies another promontory which also extends far into the river I has a tolerable moson that answers for a hotel macadamized streets clean add wide loading directly into a grassy sea of verdure that stretches away as far as the eye can see and a lovely plaza crowded with old trees under whose drooping branches wo propose to I spend most of our walking hours during I the next few days But of course our first business is t present our credentials from the Uruguayan government to the I I Alcaldi an important personage in the I rural districts whose ofilce corresponds to I that of mayor in the United States and L I send out a few letters of introduction L which Montevidian friends have kindly lurnished thus securing to ourselves all I the courteies and hospitalities of the place And next we must devote an entire day to visiting tho Leibig worlts The factory walls are surrounded by a lofty brick wall entered through an imposing im-posing arc way and within the walls are many buildings including machine shops shops for tinsmiths carpenters and engineers engin-eers all on u complete scalo so that necessary neces-sary repairs can be made on the spot A tramway runs from the works down to tho flue new iron pier where vessels are loaded with the extract and we notice that several sev-eral shins aro wailing for their cargoes The workmens cottages are clustered outside out-side the walls forming a considerable village vil-lage as more than a thousand met are employed I em-ployed who reside on the spot with their wives and children First we are conducted I con-ducted to the private office of the manager who insists on serving us with champagne crackers and cheese from the handsome sideboard that is topped wltn a bust of Baron Loibijr We observe that there is I an extensive library in the room containing contain-ing books in German Spanish French and English a center table laden with English periodicals blooming plants and singing birds in the windows and pet cats and dogs that appear on chummy terms with one another an-other and the world in general But business must bo attended to and while waiting for a clerk to show us over tho works we gently draw out the iiI manager and elicit the following ii-I Wcrk is carr d on only seven ironths ip a aear but during that time 1000 oxen ore slaughtered every day all good sound animals none less than four years old Already during tho twentyeight years h they have been established there upward of three million cattle have been made into extract representing about 40000000 in value The company owns thousands of acres of the richest pasture lands in the world in this republic and in the Argen tine and hundreds of thousands of cattle catte The extract leaves this place packed in tin tn cans each of which contains 110 pounds and the substance of fifteen animals ands and-s worth 250 It is sent direct to Antwerp Ant-werp to the companys general depot where it is examined by a special chemist employed for the purpose After having received that gentlemans approval and guarantee it is potted in the small white jars with which we are familiar packed incases in-cases and sent out to all tbo markets of the world Though thirtyfour pounds of lean meat are required to make one pound of extract ex-tract the substance does not contain as many nutritive as stimulative qualities which act as excitants to the digestive organs and I tend to restore the appetite repair nervous waste and tone up the debilitated Being entirely destitute of grease albumen and gelatin it cannot spoil nor lose its flavor however long it may bo kept in any climate mate Brace your nerves for some unpleasant un-pleasant sights and let us follow the employee em-ployee who has been detailed for the purpose pur-pose and view the process of converting a hugh fullblooded ox in the pasture into a few spoonfulls of brownish liquid The corrals are a little way out on the grassy ln n L L L luU vuu < tu WLU LueBlaUJnterln yara I by a stockadebordered lane The cattle catte are driven into these corrals or paddocks j fifty at a time and supplied with water but no food Skirting the lane is a narrow platform about the height of the animals horns leading down to a smaller paddock surroundedby a similar elevated pathway with a bridge over the opening into the gal pont which is further closed by a movable beam Below the bridge is a low square iron truck on a tramway which runs into another galpon branching into two parallel lines so that trucks may pass one another Now watch closely what happens A villainouslooking Guacho who evidently finds pleasure in his work mounts the stockade and takes unerring aim with his lasso at the biggest and most powerful ox One end of the lasso is attached to a winch turned by steam which hauls the astonished aston-ished beast slipping and stumbling and pushing aside the other animals in his way till bis head touches the fatal beam upon which stands a metador or killerwho holds a short broadbladed sharppointed knife With one blow of thi weapon delivered I close behind the horns he severs the spinal cord and the huge victim drops like a lump of lead without a struggle upon the iron truck in waiting The lasso is then disengaged disen-gaged and the truck propelled by two men is pushed into an adjoining shed where lot men silent but busy as bees are skinning skin-ning and cutting up carcasses Following the truck we observe that one side of this great shed ifa lined with poles for hanging i meat upon and the other side is occupied I by a fat slightly elevated stone paved place upon which the dead cattle are laid I reminds one of the marble slab at the morgue and the sight of the long building splashed with blood from end to end tho pavements running rivers and clotted blood and fifty corpses being dismembered at once by halfnaked blood bespattered men is ghastly and spoils ones appetite for meat for many a day Confining our attention to the one especial espe-cial carcass wo see it hauled onto tho stone paved platform by means of a lasso attached at-tached to a horse and placed in position convenient for the skinner The latter worthy a wildlooking Uruguayan spat tnnr1 h n H H hU vU LVP LV LUI U1e an AZtec AZ-tec priest of the sacrifice begins operations by cutting the animals throat letting loose another river of blood so hot that it seems to steam as it seeks tho gutter and emitting a sickening odor of freshness The hide is then torn off with marvelous rapidityand horrible to relate tho huge carcus moves nnd struggles and a faint bellow is heard No doubt the severance of the spinal cord has rendered the poor beast dead I to all sense of feeling but muscular acton remains However in less time than it takes to tell it he is divided into a hundred pieces and with lightninglike rapidity the parts are sorted and carried off in different directions While yet warm and quivering every particle meat is cut from the bones hung upon the poles that line l tho other side and the skin put to soak in i bath of brine The n a minutest scrap is preserved and utilized in some shape even to the entrails hoots horns and skull The bones are ground into powder and mixed with what remains of the meat after the juice j has been taken out for the extract and together with the blood and hide trimmings trim-mings era made into fertilizer for the soil soi which is said to be better than any guano To return to our skinner His knife is as sharp as i razor and he uses it with incredible in-credible swiftness and dexterity I requires re-quires just eight minutes to skin an ox and cut it into a hundred pieces aud we were informed that it can be done iti five minutes min-utes A skinners salary is 15 cents the carcass I car-cass but if in any skin ho makes the smallest hole he forfeits payment for the I animal About thirtyfive animals is said to be an average days work though the more expert skin fifty and upwards The men are not allowed to talk during working hours and strictest order is preserved and everything is kept as clean as the gory business will allow Soon as it is cooled i tho meat on the poles is cured of every particle I par-ticle of fat and put to stew in large plr ob long caldrons in which the water is kept below the boiling point for it is a pecu liarity of the mixture that larity It contains no matter not soluble in cold water A thin soup is thus obtained which is carefully skimmed and strained so that the smallest trace of grease is removed Then the soup is subjected to a series of evapora tons growing thicker and thicker till it finally acquires about the color and consistency of sorghum which when cool becomes a jolly and is ready for use We are told that about ono hundred oxen are killed skinned and cutup cut-up in an hour as an average amount of work and that in the height of tho season 11200 a day i the rule or in the neighbor hood of 15000 in seven months Why operations are suspended for the remainder 01 the year 1 do not know It Is a singular circumstance that the extract commands a higher price right here in Uruguay where it Is made and raibeu so to speak than in foreign marlcota or it would be singular did wo not remember that quinine costs three times as mucn in Peru and Bolivia whore it rows as elsewhere prows owing to exorbitant ex-orbitant duties on the manufactured pro duct that the dearest place in the world to buy pearls is at the jearl fisheries opals at the opal mines onyx to the onx quarries seal skins at the headquarters of the furseal company and so on to the end of the chapter with most desirable articles We of tho far north are most familiar with what is termed the English Extract and which though it bears the Leibig stamp and doubtless originated here is cheaper than the Uruguayan and of in ferior quality 1 am told that the reason for this lies in the fact that there are companies com-panies both in England and the United States which bay the extract in the original origi-nal tins after it has been shipped to Antwerp Ant-werp and duly examined by the chemist there and then weaken it by some mechanical mechani-cal process on purpose to sell more cheaply FANNIE B WARD |