Braunsweiger Mumme (advertisement)

New York, 1895

The Braunsweiger Mumme is bottled by the Long Island Bottling Co., of Brooklyn, is made from roasted malt, the same as Dublin Stout, but is subjected to large beer fermentation, which only develops a small quantity of alcohol, thus producing a pleasant beverage, very nourishing and easy of digestion, but without the large percentage of alcohol contained in Stout. Experience has proven it to be very agreeable to persons of weak digestion when taken with meals, and also a great appetizer.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1895, p. 2.

Kick in Brewery Malt Puts Man in Hospital

1920

Barrel Explodes and Driver's Ribs Are Fractured.

NEW YORK, N. Y. — A barrel of malt extract, a fluid explained by the police to be a byproduct of breweries and much reduced in content, acquired sudden strength as a result of the heat as it was trucked thru the Bronx.

Unmindful of the ominous sizzling that came from its interior, Theodore Kirchy, the truckman, banged the barrel down inconsequentially on the pavement at its destination. The barrel exploded, the flying staves whizzing thru the air around Kirchy's body. Two of them struck him, fracturing a rib on each side.

The rest of the barrel and its foamy contents disappeared for a moment. Then the malt began to collect on the pavement and some of the barrel staves came to earth. No one else was hurt. Kirchy was taken to a hospital.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 2.

Dead Snake In Beer Keg

Iowa, 1900

Poisoned Beer Results in the Death of Three Persons

Fort Dodge, July 21. — Four young men living in Cerro Gordo county, near the Minnesota line, purchased and drank from a keg of eastern brewed beer, and as a result three of them have died and the fourth is now in terrible agony and is reported to be at the point of death.

The day was warm and the beer was consumed hurriedly by the friends, who little realized that they were sipping a death dealing draught. They were all immediately taken sick, and although a physician was soon after summoned, the taking off of three of the young men could not be prevented.

To ascertain, if possible, the cause of the sickness, the keg was broken into and the decomposed remains of a genuine rattlesnake were found. Improbable as the story sounds, it is true, and is rendered plausible by the fact that empty kegs are often left lying around for weeks before being shipped back to the breweries. It is thus easy for reptiles and insects to crawl into the kegs.

The scalding out of the kegs upon their return to the brewery would naturally kill any living organism, which would remain in the keg. It was only a few years ago that a party here became sick from drinking keg beer and an investigation showed that a dead toad occupied the keg with the beer.


Lee Junior Stamping State

Robert E. Lee, Jr., grandson of the great Confederate soldier, is taking a prominent part in Virginia's political campaign. He is a son of William H. F. Lee, who has represented the Alexandria district in congress for several terms, and is a young man of considerable culture and oratorical ability.

Overworked Brewery Employees

1886

To the ordinary tramp, who has to obtain his supply of beer by pouring stale stuff from beer kegs in front of saloons into empty tomato cans, from which he quaffs, and runs chances of having the ragged tin cut a hair lip for him, it would seem that the brewery employees, who are allowed unlimited beer free of cost, have a soft thing.

And yet those men, who can drink beer all day without being compelled to put up the regulation nickel, struck for less hours of work and higher wages. To read the accounts in the papers of the amount of beer the workmen about a brewery drink during the day, the reader does not wonder that the men are overworked and asked a reduction of hours.

It is said that some of the men drink forty glasses of beer per day. Considering that they have to walk nearly a block to the extreme end of the brewery yard, where a gentlemanly agent of the brewing company waits upon them without price, it will be seen that considerable valuable time is lost, besides the wear and tear on the men. Of course the brewery employees are able-bodied men, or they could not stand the strain.

Forty glasses of beer put into a stomach in ten hours would seem to be hard enough work for any one man, if he did nothing else. Then the necessity of walking forty blocks and returning to work, makes eighty blocks per day of pedestrian exercise. This of itself is enough to make an ordinary man tired, if he did not have to carry in his overworked stomach forty glasses of beer.

From the statistics it is plain that the brewery laborers are the most overworked of any class of citizens, and something should be done for them. It may be outside the province of the humane society to step in and protect those men, but certainly there should be some organization that can stand between those men and overwork. What is the matter with the temperance societies, in taking hold of this grievance? If the temperance societies are true to their motto, of "Faith, Hope and Charity," they will see a chance to do a great work.

Let each society detail enough of its members to man a brewery, and do all the work. This would leave the regular employees with nothing to do but walk back and forth between the places where the temperance apostles are at work, and the place where the beer is given away. The temperance people could work for nothing, for Charity; they could have Faith that the regular brewery men would draw their salary all right; and Hope they would have a good time.

If the temperance people kick on this idea, it is possible the brewers might employ temperance men to make the beer and do the work, discharge the old employees who strike, and thus save oceans of beer. But if it is impracticable to employ temperance people, and the brewers feel that things must go right along as before, they can save at least the time that the men lose in marching on the beer keg forty times a day, and save the wear and tear on the men, by a simple device which The Sun will suggest.

Each man could be provided with a coil of hose, the small rubber hose such as is used on infants' nursing bottles. A reel could be fixed on the back of each laborer, containing enough of the small rubber pipe to reach from a central tank of beer to any part of the brewery, with a spring, so that when the pipe is uncoiled, and the laborer returns toward the tank, the slack will be taken up on the reel. A nozzle could be arranged near the mouth of the overworked laborer, so that he could take his sustenance at any moment, wherever he happened to be.

Of course a hundred men with hose reels on their backs would look odd at first, but the oddity would soon wear off. Some may think that the employees of a brewery should pay for their beer, the same as bakers pay for the bread in a bakery where they work, shoemakers pay for their shoes, and journeymen tailors pay for their clothes, but this would be plainly a violation of the constitution of the United States. The strike of the brewery laborers has shown that they are the beat treated of any class of laborers in the country. The only thing the public wonders at is that the brewing companies have not been compelled by their employees to give them a house and lot and horse and buggy each. — Peck's Sun.