Message to the New York State Senate, 18 February 1799
Message to the New York State Senate
[Albany, 18th February 1799.]
GENTLEMEN,
Several of the productions and manufactures of this State are by law subjected to inspection. It still remains a question whether each branch of inspection should within certain districts be committed to one chief or principal inspector, and he be made responsible both for himself and his deputies, or whether as many distinct and independent inspectors in each branch should be appointed as would be necessary to do the business of it.
It appears to me desirable that a well digested system for the inspection of such articles and at such places as may be judged advisable, should be formed and be comprised in one statute.1
Recent facts which the city of New-York has reason to regret indicate the propriety of further legislative attention to the article of salted provisions. I therefore think it not improper to communicate to you a paper on that subject which contains much information, and which I have received from one of our fellow citizens whose zeal for the public welfare and whose endeavor to promote it are well known.2
JOHN JAY.
PtD, N.Y. Senate Journal, 22nd sess., 2nd meeting (1799), 48. NYGM, 2: 435–36.
1. JJ again addressed the state senate on 18 Mar. when he presented that body with a memorial presented by the New York City Chamber of Commerce describing the necessity for laws regulating the salting, repacking, and inspection of beef and pork for exportation. Spectator (New York), 3 Apr. 1799; N.Y. Senate Journal, 22nd sess., 2nd meeting (1799), 83; NYGM, 2: 439.
Within weeks, the New York state legislature passed two laws regarding the inspections of foodstuffs. “An Act to regulate the Salting, Repacking and Inspection of Beef and Pork for exportation,” 29 Mar. 1799, and “An Act for the Inspection of Flour and Meal,” 2 Apr. 1799, N.Y. State Laws, 22nd sess., 2nd meeting (1799), 708–20, 821–26. For the New York Senate’s role in drafting and passing these statutes, see N.Y. Senate Journal, 22nd sess., 2nd meeting (1799) [21 Feb., 18, 21, 27, 29 Mar. 1799], 51–52, 83–84, 90, 106–7, 112.
2. The papers that JJ delivered to the legislature were probably either a report drawn up by John R. B. Rogers, James Tillary, and Samuel L. Mitchill of the Committee of the Medical Society or a combined report produced by this committee, together with the Commissioners of the Health Office (John Oothout, Jacob Abramse, Ezekiel Robins, and Richard Bailey), the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce (Guilian Verplanck, Cornelius Ray, and Moses Rogers), and the Committee of the Corporation (John B. Coles, Gabriel Furman, William Bayard, and William Hammersley). Report of the committee, appointed by the Medical Society, of the State of New-York, to enquire into the symptoms, origin, cause, and prevention of the pestilential disease, that prevailed in New-York during the summer and autumn of the year 1798 ([New York], 1799; Early Am. Imprints, series 1, no. 35933); Commercial Advertiser (New York) (supplement), 12 Feb. 1799; MCCNYC, 21 Jan. 1799, 2: 494–99. On the composition of the Health Office, see the editorial note “John Jay and the Yellow Fever Epidemics,” , 6: 345–60. JJ had specifically charged Oothout with rooting out bad inspectors the previous November. See JJ to John Oothout and the Health Office, 20 Nov. 1798, , 6: 709–10.