The Colonial Public and the Parsi

Stage. The Making of the Theatre of

Empire (1853–1893) Rashna Darius
Nicholson
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TRANSNATIONAL THEATRE HISTORIES

The Colonial Public

and the Parsi Stage
The Making of the Theatre of Empire
(1853–1893)
Rashna Darius Nicholson
Transnational Theatre Histories

Series Editors
Christopher B. Balme
Institut für Theaterwissenschaft
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Munich, Germany

Tracy C. Davis
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL, USA

Catherine M. Cole
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle, WA, USA
Transnational Theatre Histories illuminates vectors of cultural exchange,
migration, appropriation, and circulation that long predate the more
recent trends of neoliberal globalization. Books in the series document
and theorize the emergence of theatre, opera, dance, and performance
against backgrounds such as imperial expansion, technological develop-
ment, modernity, industrialization, colonization, diplomacy, and cultural
self-determination. Proposals are invited on topics such as: theatrical
trade routes; public spheres through cross-cultural contact; the role of
multi-ethnic metropolitan centers and port cities; modernization and
modernity experienced in transnational contexts; new materialism: objects
moving across borders and regions; migration and recombination of
aesthetics and forms; colonization and decolonization as transnational
projects; performance histories of cross- or inter-cultural contact; festi-
vals, exchanges, partnerships, collaborations, and co-productions; diplo-
macy, state and extra-governmental involvement, support, or subversion;
historical perspectives on capital, finance, and administration; processes of
linguistic and institutional translation; translocality, glocality, transregional
and omnilocal vectors; developing new forms of collaborative authorship.

Series Editors
Christopher B. Balme (LMU Munich)
Catherine M. Cole (University of Washington)
Tracy C. Davis (Northwestern)

Editorial Board
Leo Cabranes-Grant (UC Santa Barbara, USA)
Khalid Amine (Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tétouan, Morocco)
Laurence Senelick (Tufts University, USA)
Rustom Bharucha (JNU, New Delhi, India)
Margaret Werry (University of Minnesota, USA)
Maria Helena Werneck (Federal University of Rio de Janiero, Brazil)
Catherine Yeh (Boston University, USA/ University of Heidelberg,
Germany)
Marlis Schweitzer (York University; Canada)

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14397
 Rashna Darius Nicholson

The Colonial Public

and the Parsi Stage
The Making of the Theatre of Empire (1853–1893)
Rashna Darius Nicholson
University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong S.A.R., China

This book is the revised version of a doctoral thesis entitled ‘The Theatre of
Empire’ submitted to the Faculty of History and the Arts, Ludwig Maximilian
University of Munich, Germany.

Transnational Theatre Histories

ISBN 978-3-030-65835-9 ISBN 978-3-030-65836-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65836-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021, corrected publication 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
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names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
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and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: ‘An Actress in a Fine Company. India.’, H. C. White

Company, 1996.0009.WX25689, Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of
Photography, University of California at Riverside.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

As this work formally began in 2010, the debt that I owe to several
individuals and institutions is significant. The first draft of this book
was completed as a doctoral thesis entitled The Theatre of Empire at
the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg Globalisierung, Ludwig Maximilian Univer-
sity of Munich. I thank first and foremost Christopher Balme, Christoph
Neumann, and Robert Stockhammer, who taught me my first lessons in
history-writing.
Research for this book was conducted at the following private and
public archives: the J. N. Petit Institute, Mumbai; the K. R. Cama Oriental
Institute, Mumbai; the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai;
the Alexandra High School, Mumbai; the Maharashtra State Archives,
Mumbai; the Unesco Parzor Foundation, New Delhi; the Sangeet Natak
Akademi, New Delhi; the National School of Drama, New Delhi; the
National Archives of India, New Delhi; the Natarang Pratishthan, New
Delhi; the Calcutta Parsi Amateur Dramatics Club, Kolkata; the National
Library, Kolkata; the Natyashodh Sansthan, Kolkata; the British Library;
and the New York Public Library. The generosity of Muncherji Cama,
Nawaz Mody, Shernaz Cama, Bahadur and Ratan Postwalla, and the staff
of the J. N. Petit Institute cannot be overstated.
This book is undergirded as much by anecdotes, family photographs,
and memories as by archival research; I am grateful to the late Noshir
Gherda, the Khatow family (Vinci Khatow, Percy Khatow, Aspi Khatow,
Tony Parr), the Madan family (Rustom Bharucha and Gool Ardeshir), the

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Khambatta family (Shirin Vakil, Rukshan Vakil, and Daulat Mewawala),

the Marzban family (Ardeshir Dubash), the Kabraji family (the late Rusi
Vaccha and Jal Mehta), and the Sethna family (Ms. Raja).
For their continued intellectual support, special acknowledgement is
due to the IFTR Historiography Working Group. Claire Cochrane is
singled out for her counsel and encouragement. For pointing me in
unseen directions, I thank my colleagues at the Institute of Theatre
Studies at the LMU, Munich: Judith Rottenburg, MeLê Yamomo, Nic
Leonhardt, Anirban Ghosh, Gero Toegl, and my friends Carla Nobre
Sousa, Jo Tyabji, Simin Patel, Saachi Chitkara, Danilo Spanicciati, and
Richard Bösel. The courage and strength of my colleagues and students
and the institutional support from the School of English at the University
of Hong Kong made the revisions of this book possible. I am grateful to
Otto Heim, Jessica Valdez, Julia Kuehn, Janny Leung, the anonymous
reviewers, Catherine M. Cole, Jessica Hinds-Bond, Jack Heeney, and
especially Tracy C. Davis for their advice during the publishing process.
The copyright of images from Pārsı̄ Nāt.ak Takhtānı̄ Tavārı̄kh belongs
to the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute. These images cannot be used in
any other form or publication or for any other purpose without the
written permission of the institute. The cover image, ‘An Actress in a Fine
Company. India’, is from the Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California
Museum of Photography, University of California in Riverside. Excerpts
from this book have appeared in different forms in Ethnic and Racial
Studies, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, and The Methuen Drama
Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography.
Finally, there are few words to express my gratitude towards my family
in Mumbai, Vicenza, and New York. I am particularly indebted to my
mother, who taught me how to read Gujarati between 2010 and 2014,
and to Giovanni, for all that he has given.
This book is for Soona and Jehangir.
 Glossary

nāt.ak theatre
man.d.alı̄ club/company
set.h wealthy merchant leader/man of high social standing
nazar sight/vision/surveillance/evil eye
kalyug Hindu mythological age of discord or downfall

vii
 Transliteration Note

All translations are my own unless specified otherwise.1 I have used the
ALA-LC transliteration system. Pha has been replaced with Fa in keeping
with the Parsi model of transliterating names. Additionally, the more
commonly used ‘za’ in Hindi and Urdu has been replaced with ‘ja’ or
‘jha’ when translating from Gujarati in keeping with the original char-
acter in the source text (e.g. Marajbā˜ n). However, I have retained the ‘za’
in common Hindustani terms such as ‘nazar’. Variations in the spelling
of the names of actors, managers, and directors have been mentioned in
the endnotes. I have adopted as the standard spelling the version that was
used by the person or company themselves. In the absence of this infor-
mation, the most commonly used spelling between the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries has been cited. The names of famous personali-
ties (e.g. Dadabhai Naoroji) have been spelled according to popular usage.
Colonial Anglicized spelling has been used for city names and for theatre
productions primarily described in English newspapers.

Note
1. For a more elaborate description of the transliteration system, see Rashna
Darius Nicholson, ‘What’s in a Name? The Performance of Language in the
Invention of Colonial and Postcolonial South Asian Theatre History’, in
The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography, eds.
Claire Cochrane and Jo Robinson (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 199–209.

ix
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

Part I Discipline

2 Parsi Compradors and the Public Sphere 23

3 Social Reform, Lawmaking, and the Origins of the Parsi

Theatre 43

4 Corporeal Discipline 89

Part II Re-Enchantment

5 Science, Secular Mythology, and the Professionalization

of the Parsi Theatre 129

6 The Expansion of the Parsi Theatre 175

xi
xii CONTENTS

Part III Revolution

7 The Reformers in Need of Reforming 221

8 Race-Thinking and the Parsi Social Drama 259

9 Conclusion 289

Correction to: The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage C1

Bibliography 305

Index 317
 Abbreviations

BG Bombay Gazette
BT Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce
KIH Kaysare Hinda
NA Ek Jān.ı̄tā Pārsı̄ Ekt.arno Ardhı̄ Sadı̄ Uparno Nāt.akı̄ Anubhav
PNTT Pārsı̄ Nāt.ak Takhtānı̄ Tavārı̄kh
RG Rāst Goftār
Rāst Goftār tathā Satya Prakāś
STOJ Straits Times Overland Journal
TOI Times of India

xiii
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 ‘Bombay Play-house, 1810’ (Source British Library, File

number D40013-09, © British Library Board. All Rights
Reserved/Bridgeman Images) 24
Fig. 2.2 ‘The Entertainment given to C. Forbes Esquire,
in the Theatre at Bombay, on the Night of 16th Oct.
1811’ (Source British Library, File number D40013-27,
© British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman
Images) 25
Fig. 3.1 Naśarvānjı̄ Dorābjı̄ Āpakhatyār (Source Pat.el, PNTT ,
49. Courtesy: The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental
Institute, Mumbai) 51
Fig. 3.2 Kuvarjı̄ Sorābjı̄ Nājar, member of the Elphinstone
Theatrical Club (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 7. Courtesy: The
Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 58
Fig. 3.3 Dhanjı̄śāh Navrojı̄ Pārakh, member of the Elphinstone
Theatrical Club (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 9. Courtesy: The
Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 60
Fig. 3.4 Naśarvānjı̄ Navrojı̄ Pārakh, member of the Elphinstone
Theatrical Club (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 36. Courtesy: The
Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 61
Fig. 4.1 Dādābhāi T.hut.hı̄ (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 158. Courtesy:
The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 94
Fig. 4.2 Farāmjı̄ Dalāl (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 285. Courtesy: The
Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 95

xv
xvi LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.3 Farāmroj Jośı̄ (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 38. Courtesy: The
Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 96
Fig. 4.4 Kekhuśro Kābrājı̄ (Source Tārāporvāl.ā, Pe. Kha.
Kābrājı̄-Smruti. Bombay: ‘Sāñj Vartamān’ Press, 1905,
n.p. Courtesy: The J. N. Petit Institute, Mumbai) 97
Fig. 4.5 Austen Henry Layard, ‘Hall in Assyrian Palace, Restored’,
1849. From General Research Division, The New
York Public Library, New York Public Library Digital
Collections. Accessed July 15, 2020, http://digitalcollecti
ons.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-46e4-a3d9-e040-e00a18
064a99 102
Fig. 4.6 Dhanjı̄bhāi Rūstamjı̄ Kerā˜ vālā (Source Pat.el, PNTT ,
330. Courtesy: The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental
Institute, Mumbai) 104
Fig. 4.7 Kāvasjı̄ Naśarvānjı̄ Kohı̄dārū (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 286.
Courtesy: The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental
Institute, Mumbai) 105
Fig. 4.8 Dādābhāi Sorābjı̄ Pat.el (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 95. Courtesy:
The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 106
Fig. 5.1 Nāhānābhāi Rūstamjı̄ Rān.ı̄nā (Source The Calcutta Parsi
Amateur Dramatic Club Golden Jubilee Souvenir Volume.
1907 –1947 , Calcutta, 1957. Courtesy: The Calcutta Parsi
Amateur Dramatic Club) 136
Fig. 5.2 Advertisement for Dāde Darı̄āv by the Victoria Nāt.ak
Man.d.alı̄. This advertisement was the first in the Parsi
theatre’s history to include a picture (Source RG, 22 May
1870, 342. Courtesy: The J. N. Petit Institute, Mumbai) 138
Fig. 5.3 Khurśedjı̄ Mervānjı̄ Bālı̄vālā (Source Gulfām, Bhamto-Bhut,
Bombay: Fort Printing Press. Courtesy: The PARZOR
Foundation, New Delhi) 152
Fig. 6.1 Edaljı̄ Dādābhāi (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 274. Courtesy: The
Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 182
Fig. 6.2 D. osābhāi Fardunjı̄ Mogal (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 159.
Courtesy: The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental
Institute, Mumbai) 183
Fig. 6.3 Jamśedjı̄ Farāmjı̄ Mādan (Source The Calcutta Parsi
Amateur Dramatic Club Golden Jubilee Souvenir Volume.
1907 –1947 , Calcutta, 1957. Courtesy: The Calcutta Parsi
Amateur Dramatic Club) 189
Fig. 6.4 Farāmjı̄ Dādābhāi Apu (Source Pat.el, PNTT , 160.
Courtesy: The Trustees, The K. R. Cama Oriental
Institute, Mumbai) 190
 LIST OF FIGURES xvii

Fig. 6.5 The Pandal under construction in Mysore of the Parsee

Victoria Theatrical Company of Bombay, 1st July 1902
(Courtesy: Shirin Vakil) 192
Fig. 6.6 Grandpa Jehangir (Courtesy: Shirin Vakil) 195
Fig. 8.1 Photograph of the Kābrājı̄ family with Bahmanjı̄ standing
at centre (Courtesy: Rusi Vaccha) 268
Fig. 8.2 Portrait of Mary Fenton in Parsi dress (Source Pat.el,
PNTT , 308. Courtesy: The Trustees, The K. R. Cama
Oriental Institute, Mumbai) 270
Fig. 8.3 ‘Scene in a tragedy by Famous Troup[e] [Bālı̄vālā’s
company]’, H. C. White Company, 1996.0009.WX25692,
Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum
of Photography, University of California at Riverside 278
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book is a history of the Parsi theatre. No sentence could be more

deceptive in its apparent simplicity. Originating in Bombay, the colonial
Parsi theatre, performed in Gujarati, English, Farsi, and Hindustani, and
comprising Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Parsi, and Anglo-Indian personnel,
rapidly became South Asia’s primary form of entertainment during its
eighty-year existence (1853–ca. 1933). The Parsis, today considered an
ethno-religious Indian minority of Iranian origin, created this sophisti-
cated, commercial theatre industry that played a formative role in Asian
cultural history. Emerging with the rise of colonial entrepôts and modern
forms of cultural consumption, Parsi theatre was highly syncretic; its plays
amalgamated Indo-Persian and Hindu mythological stories, Arabian
Nights lore, Shakespearean tragedy, English melodrama, and Western
and Hindustani music. Described as the ‘Indian equivalent of Victo-
rian spectacular theatre’,1 it introduced European stagecraft, forms of
theatrical management, and spectacle in a recognizable idiom across
South and Southeast Asia. As the precursor of numerous influential

The original version of this chapter was revised: At the end of the first
paragraph “West Africa” was corrected to “East Africa”. The correction to this
chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65836-6_10

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021, corrected publication 2021
R. D. Nicholson, The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage,
Transnational Theatre Histories,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65836-6_1
2 R. D. NICHOLSON

cultural forms such as Komedie Stamboel, Bangsawan, Yemeni drama, the

autochthonous regional theatres of India, and South Asian cinema, Parsi
drama’s impress was significant. As Matthew Isaac Cohen argues, ‘much
of the theatrical history of South and Southeast Asia is cloaked in mystery.
… But the history of the popular theatre movement can be traced more
or less precisely to a point of origin, the Parsi … minority of Bombay
during the 1850s’.2 Consequently, the title of this book alludes to the
Parsi theatre’s vast cultural influence during the colonial period, as well
as the ‘unselfconscious provincialism’, noted by Claire Cochrane, that has
skewed theatre history towards the belief that everything significant in
British theatre happened in London.3 The Theatre of Empire, I propose,
was not located in the capitals of Western Europe but instead circulated in
the mediated form of Parsi theatre, from Bombay—Urbs Prima in Indis,
the First City of India—across South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and
beyond.
While the broad lineaments of the story of Parsi theatre are well-
known, detailed histories are nonexistent. Despite the temporal and
geographic scale and long-term impact of this cultural phenomenon, the
inaccessibility of its primary sources has led to the historiographic omis-
sion of its leading figures, landmark productions, and catalytic events in
existing Asian cultural histories. This book offers foundational primary
source information that is almost entirely absent from existing schol-
arly literature. It is the first comprehensive appraisal of the origins and
early development of this pan-Asian theatrical form between 1853 and
1893, a forty-year span that covers the first half of the commercial Parsi
theatre’s existence and that encompasses three key moments of rupture
in India’s history: the 1865 share crash, the 1874 Parsi-Muslim riots, and
the 1893 cow-killing Hindu-Muslim riots. The year 1893, with which
this book concludes, was a watershed year for South Asian society and
theatre alike, as it also marked the birth of cinema, which spelled the
end of the theatre’s transregional popularity.4 By delimiting the chrono-
logical frame to a forty-year period, I am able to unravel in detail such
critical, hitherto unanswered questions as which troupes existed when;
who were their star actors and playwrights; what were the theatre’s signif-
icant plays and productions; what scenography, performance conventions,
and organizational structures were appropriated, adapted, and/or created;
and when and how did the theatre professionalize and diffuse across the
urban and semi-urban areas of the subcontinent to present-day Singa-
pore, Indonesia, and Burma? In sum, the book delineates the complex
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

institutional history of a dramatic phenomenon that originated among

an intrepid minority community and yet became the British Empire’s
most influential cultural commodity of the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries. To fill the historiographic black hole of the colonial
Asian theatrical past and ease the work of future scholarship through the
positivist accumulation of data is a function of this book.
Simultaneously, the title Theatre of Empire functions as a double
entendre, analyzing not only the object itself (Parsi theatre) but also a
meta-theatre of imperialism and nationalism, of which the proscenium
stage was an active participant and a passive index. Parsi theatre is usually
described as sensational entertainment, insulated from the protracted,
contentious sociocultural debates and political developments that culmi-
nated in the birth of the nation. By drawing on a large body of literature
(advertisements, newspaper articles, autobiographies, and not least the
plays themselves) in Gujarati, English, and Hindustani, this book contests
the dismissal of the composite, often thorny relationship between Parsi
theatre and the many communities that it attempted to please. The
unpredictable, ambiguous Parsi performance world of fluttering fairies,
sinking ships, and man-eating demons limning illusion and reality, dreams
and moral certitude, the known and the unknown, half-light and half-
truth, was not without logic. On the empire’s stage, customs and values
were disenchanted, legitimized, and disputed, hopes and dreams were
conceived and challenged, loyalty and revolution were intoned, and,
above all else, a relative cultural homogeneity was established.
As the aesthetic glue that bound together disparate regional, linguistic,
and ethnic constituencies, the Parsi theatre was foundational to the inter-
pretation of the South Asian past and present and was therefore the
single most important aesthetic formation to create the conditions for
the birth of competing visions of nationhood. Through its pivotal role
in the Parsi reform movement, its appropriation of designations such as
the Victoria, Ripon, Elphinstone, Imperial, and Alfred Theatrical Compa-
nies, and its elaborate demonstrations of loyalty, Parsi drama was initially
an influential site for the translation of the imperial project in Bombay.
However, after its professionalization in the 1870s, a corpus of spectac-
ular, mythological, and melodramatic plays offered romanticized visions
of ancient pasts, organized and disseminated a moral economy that func-
tioned as a counterpoint to colonial bourgeois thought, and propagated
racial theories in popular form. In so doing, the theatre curated, indexed,
and distributed highly charged symbols that were eventually adopted
4 R. D. NICHOLSON

by nationalist movements in the early twentieth century for ritual stag-

ings of political legitimation and sovereignty. In the absence of the clear
narrative direction characteristic of novels, journalistic reportage, and
travelogues, audiences drew on their own explanatory frames, crafting
Parsi mythological and spectacular drama into a deliciously subversive site
for the accumulation and transmission of a constellation of contrasting
worldviews and beliefs. The theatre’s unparalleled reach to the masses
across the Indian subcontinent and Malay Peninsula—populations who
had little access to print—further consolidated its position as a sociopolit-
ical powerhouse during the period of high colonialism. The book shows
how shifts in visual signage, the rehearsal of allegorical codes and figu-
rative themes, and especially the spectacular delineation of the origins
and efflorescence of classical genus enabled the invention of tradition.
From the Arabian Nights expanse of Turkey to China, from a mythical
Ancient Persia and a similarly mythical Sanskrit ‘India’, to the village idyll
of Navsari and contemporaneous colonial Bombay, audiences imagined
themselves inhabiting specific places. Spaces and places began to serve
narratological functions, thus becoming meaningful. Touring companies
dotting the landscape functioned as polyvocal sites of meaning-making,
drawing on colonial knowledge systems and material flows of capital,
goods, and labour in order to make and unmake topographies of reli-
gious, ethnic, and linguistic identities. By tracing how the incongruous,
often ambiguous, and multivocal Parsi theatre imaged and reinforced
communal and national forms of belonging and exclusion, the book
attempts to uncover the incipient possibilities in the nineteenth century
of nations unformed, repressed, or to be dreamed into being.

The Cultural Comprador

The trajectory of the book begins with the Parsis (Parsees), followers
of Zoroastrianism, who fled for the coast of Gujarat between 8 and
10 CE to escape religious persecution in the aftermath of the Arab
conquest of Persia. The community remained on the periphery of Gujarat
for approximately eight hundred years, until the first Portuguese and
British mercantile settlements in Western India were established in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Parsis thrived in these trans-
formed political environs because, as Amalendu Guha explains, they had
been relatively uninvolved in previous Muslim and Hindu administrations,
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

had greater occupational mobility, and were as a community discon-

nected from the sociopolitical power struggles that characterized the first
phase of the consolidation of colonial rule.5 Migrating in droves to the
emerging colonial entrepôt of Bombay, which would soon overrun Surat
as the capital of Western India, the community made a swift occupational
shift, from agriculture and artisanry to international trade and shipping.
During the colonial reconfiguration of trade networks from the export of
finished products to raw cotton and opium, Parsis joined existing Euro-
pean firms, becoming indispensable in such occupations as brokerage,
banking, and shipbuilding.6 Jürgen Osterhammel clarifies that in Asia,
Europeans required an extended period of time to adapt to conditions
that were foreign and seemingly impenetrable.7 Collaborators not only
helped manage the colonial trade but also developed joint Indo or Sino-
European ventures and new commercial routes that actuated the rise of
port cities and the development of new forms of consumption. In their
capacity as ‘go-betweens’, gatekeepers, and knowledge brokers, these
‘compradors’ (as the Portuguese first designated them) thus facilitated the
global flow of capital through translation. The common Parsi surnames
Dalal (broker) and Dubash (two languages or translator) reference the
community’s privileged diplomatic role in controlling the movement of
goods, information, and forms of knowledge between diverse constituen-
cies. The book demonstrates how Parsis as compradors were the lifeblood
of the British Empire, actuating the formation of not only a global capi-
talist economy but also a cross-cultural conceptual economy characterized
by processes of interpretation, legitimation, and diffusion.
Colonialism, as has frequently been noted, was realized not merely
through a coercive machinery of military, economic, and political
phenomena, but also through cultural technologies of power such as liter-
ature, journalism, and theatre. The comprador trader, the first burgher
or bourgeois, herein played a decisive role. Yet several studies have also
argued that compradorial complicity was not wholly unalloyed; there
was a considerable overlap between national and comprador elements,
between early national industrialization and colonial capital.8 Doubly
peripheral, belonging neither to the worlds translated from nor to the
worlds translated to, Parsis as compradors negotiated zones of difference,
inhabiting a grey area of constant ambiguity. The book traces how the
Parsis not only domesticated the imperial project through acts of trans-
lation but also created sites for self-representation and subsequently for
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The modern
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Title: The modern packing house

A complete treatise on the design, construction,
equipment and operation of meat packing houses,
according to present American praactice, including
methods of converting by-products into commercial
articles

Author: F. W. Wilder

Editor: David I. Davis

Release date: April 7, 2024 [eBook #73350]

Language: English

Original publication: Chicago: Nickerson & Collins, 1903

Credits: deaurider, Harry Lamé and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

MODERN PACKING HOUSE ***
 Please see the Transcriber’s Notes
at the end of this text.
New original cover art included with
this eBook is granted to the public
domain.
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THE MODERN
PACKING HOUSE
A COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE DESIGN,
CONSTRUCTION,
EQUIPMENT AND OPERATION OF MEAT PACKING
HOUSES, ACCORDING TO PRESENT AMERICAN
PRACTICE, INCLUDING METHODS OF
CONVERTING BY-PRODUCTS INTO
COMMERCIAL ARTICLES.

New Edition
Revised, Amplified and Enlarged by
DAVID I . DAVI S
 First Edition by the Late
F. W. WIL DE R
For Many Years General Superintendent Swift & Co.

PUBLISHERS
NICKERSON & COLLINS CO.
CHICAGO

Copyright, 1905 and 1921,

By NICKERSON & COLLINS CO., Chicago

All Rights Reserved

 Press of
Ice and Refrigeration
Chicago.
 PREFACE.
In the preparation of the revised edition of this work, the first
complete treatise upon the subject of the meat packing house
business published, the original scheme has been followed. First,
presenting in a convenient and simple form, practical suggestions,
tables and formula that are needed in the operation of the packing
house business according to modern practice. Second, describing
operations in the various ramifications of the business, from the
unloading of the animals at the pens to the production of the finished
product and the disposition of it, in the order in which the different
operations are conducted.
The various operations described and subjects treated upon have
been indexed so that any matter upon which it is desired to obtain
instant information may be readily found. The author arranged the
chapters in the order of the various operations in the packing house,
together with descriptions of the machinery and appliances required.
The established packer, as well as the beginner, if he carefully digest
the contents of this work, will find he has valuable information, the
knowledge of which will aid him in conducting his business.
The chapters on proper construction and arrangement contain
information in which the author has given the reader the benefit of
his experience in the construction and operation of packing plants.
A portion of the contents of this work is devoted to tests showing
the value and yields of the various products of a modern packing
house, based on prices and conditions existing at the time they were
made, in which the percentages and comparisons are reliable and
are available to the reader by using the weights and percentage
shown, computed on present commercial prices.
The numerous formulas given for the manufacture and
preservation of the various products of the packing house are those
which have been proven to be the best after years of experience. In
every instance they have been put in the simplest form possible, so
that no mistake can be made in applying them.
 In revising this work, it is recognized that the use of some of the
ingredients are now prohibited by regulation in the United States, but
in some instances, it has been seen fit to not change the original
formulas. In some instances, however, the omission of the
objectionable ingredient has been made, though otherwise the
formula remains the same as in the first edition. Many formulas
rendered obsolete are omitted on account of conflicting with pure
food laws.
The information furnished in these pages is based upon the
author’s experience, there being very little theorizing upon the
possibilities of what may be accomplished by adopting certain
prescribed methods. For this reason, the book will be found of
practical value to those interested in the meat packing business.
The present necessity of a work on packing house operation is
more evident than when the first edition was published. The original
work has been entirely revised where considered necessary,
amplified in places and much new information added.
The chapters relative to construction, refrigeration and mechanical
operation have been revised to conform to advanced practice.
Acknowledgment is made of the use of engravings, photographs
and original data, and ideas developed and used by the reviser in his
engineering practice. That the volume will be well received and fill
the needs as a hand book and reference work is the hope of the
authors and publishers.
The assimilation of the contents as a foundation, together with
power of observation and application will greatly assist beginners in
packing house work, the methods of which are progressing—
although the fundamentals remain the same.
The reviser hopes assistance will be given in this way, which he in
turn received by oral advice from the two outstanding
superintendents in their day (the days of the business growth),
Messrs. F. W. Wilder and C. O. Young.
D. I. Davis.
Chicago, July 1, 1921.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Modern Packing Houses 1

Introduction and Growth—Concentration — Early Methods —
Yankee Ingenuity — Chicago Yards — Movement Westward —
Economic Factors — Saving By-Products — Pioneer’s Troubles
— Using Box Cars — Using Refrigerator Cars — Chilling
Rooms — Mechanical Refrigeration — Freezing Meats —
Overseas Shipments.

CHAPTER II.

Location and Construction 9

Location — Water Supply — Sewage — Odors and Prevailing
Winds — Cleanliness — Designs and Errors — Character of
Business — Requirements — Principles of Design.

CHAPTER III.

Plant Design 14
Description of Plants — Plant No. 1 — Plant No. 2 — Plant No.
3 — Plant No. 4 — Type of Plant — Loading Facilities —
Producing Department — Abbatoir Building — Rendering
Building — Live Stock — Icing Department — Cooler Building
— Pork House — Manufacturing Building — Salt Spaces —
Power Department — Gravity System — How to Build —
 Fireproof Design — Advantages — Slow Burning Construction
— Approval of Plans.

CHAPTER IV.

Refrigeration Equipment 29
Ammonia Machines — Ammonia — Compressor — Condenser
— Receiver — Cooler — Condensing Water — Unit Basis —
Computing from Unit Basis — How Rated — Freezer
Requirements — Freezers in Small Plants — Cylinder
Arrangement — Why Brine Circulation — Air Circulating —
Force Draft — Coil Room Systems — Brine Chilling — Brine
Methods — Types of Brine Coolers — Balanced Brine System
— Direct Expansion — Two Stage Compressors.

CHAPTER V.

Refrigeration Requirements 45
Refrigeration — Necessities — Ice Plants — Natural Ice —
Chilling — Quantity Refrigeration to Provide — Space Per Ton
Machine — Machinery Per Head — For Cooled Meats — Ice
Computation — Compressor Capacity — Chilling Lard —
Summary Computations — Low Temperature Brine System.

CHAPTER VI.

Power Plant Requirement 52

Steam Making Equipment — Uses of Pumps — Types of
Pumps — Pumps for Brine — Water Supply — Pumps for Wells
— Water Distribution Systems — Pumps for Boiler Feeding —
Heating Boiler Feed Water — Wells — Cooling Towers —
Economizers — Superheaters — Steam Engines — Exhaust
 Steam — Advice as to Exhaust Steam — Boilers —
Conclusion.

CHAPTER VII.

Coolers 60
Meat Chilling — Dividing Beef Coolers — Regular
Temperatures — Main Cooler — Handling Beef — Fore-Cooler
— Heavy Cattle — Domestic Beef — Trimming of Beef — Skirt
Trimming — Ribbing Beef — Freezing Beef — Loading Beef —
Weighing and Tagging — Care of Coolers — Mutton and Veal
— Chilling Hogs — Cellars — Freezing Meat.

CHAPTER VIII.

Warehouses 70
Warehouse Design — Floor Area — Fire Proof Buildings —
Floor Construction — Coolers — Fan and Ventilation — Spray
System — Galvanized Sheet Iron Pipes — Coil Rooms —
Quantity of Pipe — Method of Erecting — Life of Pipe — Cellar
Ceiling Suspension — Ratio of Piping — Defrosting — Gardner
Curtain System — Direct Expansion Piping — Chill-Room
Bunkers — Low Temperature Brine System — Freezer and
Storage Buildings.

CHAPTER IX.

Slaughtering Cattle 92
Receiving Live Stock — Watering — Driving Cattle — Knocking
Cattle — Sticking — Heading — Pritch Sticks — Foot Skinning
— Ripping and Leg Breaking — Flooring Cattle — Breast
Sawing — Fell Cutting — Rumping — Beef Spreaders — Fell
Beating — Gutting — Backing — Tail Sawing — Splitting —
 Splitting Cleavers — Clearing Out and Hide Dropping — Neck
Splitting — Bruise Trimming — Skirt Trimming — Washing
Cattle — Fountain Brushes — Dressing Cattle — Conveyors.

CHAPTER X.

Dressing Yields and Cattle Cutting 106

Yields of Cattle — Yield from Twenty-two Native Cattle — Yield
from Fifty-nine Texas Cattle — Yield from Twenty Heavy Cattle
— Yield from Thirty-four Cattle — Percentage of Various Cuts
— Beef Cuts — Diagram of Cutting — Grading — Loins — Ribs
— Rounds — Chucks — Plates, Shanks and Flanks —
Barreled Beef.

CHAPTER XI.

Hides and Pelts 126

Green Hides — Condition — Scores — Prod Pole Damage —
Clean Floors — Leather Yields — Pattern — Proper Storage for
Hides — Grading — Grubs in Hides — Salt to Be Used —
Building of Packs of Hides — Trimming of Green Hides —
Switches — Shrinkage of Hides — Sheep Pelts.

CHAPTER XII.

Oleo Oil and Stearine 136

Fats — Origin of Butterine — Oleo Oil — Oleo Fats —
Selection and Care — Cleanliness and Collection — Chilling
Fat — Cooling Water — Melting — Settling the Oil — Clarifiers
— Scrap Vat — Seeding or Graining Oil — Press Room —
Collecting Oil — Oil Receivers — Temperature of Oil Drawn to
Tierce — Stearine — Oil House Yields — Grading Fats — Tests
 on Oil Fats — Butcher Fats — Mutton Fat — Oil Selection —
Oil House Operation.

CHAPTER XIII.

Bone Department 159

Bone Department — Hard Bone — Glue Bone — Bone
Products — Horns — Manufactured Articles — Skulls — Test
Yield from Skulls and Feet — Buttocks and Thighs — Blades
and Ribs — Drying — Crushed Bone — Grinding Bone —
Neats Foot Oil Storage — Neats Foot Oil Purifier — Yield Tests.

CHAPTER XIV.

Tank House Department 170

Tank House Design — Isolation and Ventilation — Separation
of Press Room — Digesters — Rendering Tank — Surface Box
— Press and Pump — Cooking Killing Stock — Operating Tank
Blow Off — Pressing Tankage — Treatment of Lard and Tallow
— Titer in Tallow and Lard — Steam for Cooking — Cooking
Tests — Operating Odorless — Tests — Catch Basin.

CHAPTER XV.

Tank Water 189

Soil Fertility — Animal Feeding — Tank Water — Separation of
Solids — Collecting Grease — Testing Tank Water —
Evaporating Tank Water — Description of Apparatus —
Cleaning Evaporators — Table of Boiling Points — Testing Stick
— Copperas in Water to Evaporate — Solids in Water — Drying
Stick — Value of Tankage — Quantity of Tank Water — Cost of
Evaporating.
 CHAPTER XVI.

Fertilizer 201
Fertilizer — Blood — Receiving Tank — Cooking — Pressing —
Purity — Storing — Quick Handling — Tankage — Quotations
and Value — Grease — Influence of Stick — Digester Tankage
— Slime — Dryers — Drying — Expense for Drying —
Commercial Fertilizer — State Regulations — Mixing Materials
— Conversion Factors.

CHAPTER XVII.

Casings 208
Description of Beef Casings — Round Casings, How Made —
Selection of Round Casings — Export Casings — Domestic
Rounds — Beef Middles — Turning and Sliming — Inspection
and Measuring — Beef Bungs — Bung Gut Skins — Beef
Bladders — Beef Weasands — Packages — Salt —
Cleanliness — Water Temperature — Machines for Casings —
Hog Casings — Small Casings.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Beef Miscellany 217

Beef Miscellaneous — Livers — Sweetbreads — Beef Hearts
— Tails — Weasand Meat — Beef Tongues — Washing —
Hanging — Trimming — Curing — Freezing — Surplus Rounds
— Stripping Beef Hams — Formulas for Curing — Smoking —
Tests — Glass Jar Beef — Beef Trimmings — Barrel Beef —
Tripe — Cleaning Tripe — Pickling — Cost of Production.

CHAPTER XIX.
Sheep and Calves 229
Increased Production of Sheep — Penning — Dressing by
Piece Method — String Gang — Sheep Ring — Sheep
Dressing — Legging — Pelting — Methods of Finishing —
Washing and Its Effect — Chilling — Lamb Tongues — Pickled
Lamb Tongues — Lamb Tongue Tests — Slaughtering Calves
— Heads and Feet.

CHAPTER XX.

Hog Slaughtering 251

Historical — Investment — Hog Yarding — Hog Dressing —
Hoisting — Sticking — Neck Washing — Scalding — Scraping
Machines — Hand Scraping — Cleaning Bodies — Ham Facing
and Cutting — Leaf Lard — Splitting — Washing — Drying —
Care in Chill Rooms — Open Air Hanging — Chilling
Necessities — Shrinkage in Chill Room — Hog By-Products —
Heads — Plucks — Paunches — Entrail Fat.

CHAPTER XXI.

Pork Cuttings 266

Hog Cutting — Variety and Classes of Hogs — Cutting Floor —
Pork Cuts — Hams — Side Meats — Bellies — Backs — Loins
— Shoulders — Butts and Plates — Percentage of Yield —
Change Cuts One Side — Test on Five Sides — Complete
Cutting Test.

CHAPTER XXII.

Curing Meats 311

Curing Cellars — Hams and Their Treatment — Wilder Hams
— Shoulder Meats — Bellies — Overhauling Meats — Fancy
 Bacon — Shipping Ages — Second Pickle — Dry Salt Meats —
Curing Dry Salt Meats — Smoking Dry Salt Meats — Barreled
Pork — Curing Barreled Pork — English Meats — Pigs Feet —
Pigs Tongues — Pigs Snouts.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Lard, Compound and Greases 340

Historical — Quantity and Quality — Neutral Lard — Kettle
Rendered Lard — Prime Steam Lard — Refined Lard —
Bleaching Lard — Filter Press — Lard Roll — Lard Packing —
Compound Lard — Cottonseed Oil — Refining Crude Oil —
Deodorizing Cottonseed Oil — Pressing Temperatures — Lard
Oil — Treatment for Lard Grease.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Smoke House 364

Smoking Meats — Nomenclature — Soaking — Smoking —
Gas Smoking — Temperatures — Treatment After Smoking —
Trolley System — Canvassed Meats — Shrinkage — Wrapping
— White Wash — Dried Beef — Packages — Skipper Fly.

CHAPTER XXV.

Domestic Sausage 372

Meats and Handling — Arrangement of Department — Curing
Meats — Cooler for Ground Meats — Grinding and Stuffing
Room — Smoke House — Cook Room — Dry Hanging Room
— Cooler — Smoking Temperature — Cooking Time —
Shrinkages — Pickle-Cured Products — Dry-Cured Meats —
Packing — Casings and Spices — Sausage Cereals —
Sausage Formulas — Bologna Varnish — Boiled Ham.
 CHAPTER XXVI.

Dried Sausage 399

Summer Sausage — Preservatives — Cooling Room —
Stuffing — Hanging Room — Smoke House — Dry Room
Treatment — Dry Room Caution — Shipping Ages — Storage
— Preparation of Casings — Trimming Meats — Formulas for
Sausage.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Butterine 420
Ingredients — Colors — Equipment — Rooms — Arrangement
— Testing Milk — Acidity — Milk in Butterine — Reasons for
Culture — Cream Ripeness — Water vs. Brine — Milk Not
Pasteurized — Preparatory Culture — Starters — Cultivating
the Milk — Low Grade Butterine — Graining — Working the
Butterine — Butterine Packing — High-Grade Butterine —
Cleanliness — Use of Color — Formulas — Costs of Butterine.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Boxes and Cooperage 440

Specifications for Boxes — Cooperage Specifications —
Government Specifications for Packages — Refrigerator Boxes.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Departmental Accounting 453

Departmental Accounting — Expense Accounts —
Departments — Purchases — Inventories — Store Accounts —
 Labor Charged to Departments and Sub-Divisions — General
Principles.

VIEW OF UNION STOCK YARDS, CHICAGO, SHOWING HORSE MARKET AT

LEFT AND EXCHANGE BUILDING AT RIGHT.
GENERAL VIEW OF UNION STOCK YARDS, CHICAGO, SHOWING PACKING
HOUSES IN THE DISTANCE.

ENTRANCE TO THE UNION STOCK YARDS, CHICAGO, U. S. A.