Another thing that is being largely counterfeited is tripe. Parties who
buy tripe cannot be too careful. There is a manufactory that can make
tripe so natural that no person on earth can detect the deception. They
take a large sheet of rubber about a sixteenth of an inch thick for a
background, and by a process only known to themselves veneer it with
a Turkish towel, and put it in brine to soak. The unsuspecting
boarding-house keeper, or restaurant man, buys it and cooks it, and
the boarder or transient guest calls for tripe. A piece is cut off the
damnable tripe with a pair of shears used in a tin shop for cutting
sheet iron, and it is handed to the victim. He tries to cut it,
and fails; he tries to gnaw it off, and if he succeeds in getting a
mouthful, that settles him. He leaves his tripe on his plate, and it
is gathered up and sewed on the original piece, and is kept for another
banquet.
The tripe is expensive, owing to the royalty that has to be paid to the
rubber company, and often the boarder succeeds in eating off some of the
towel, so it has to be veneered over again; but take it the year round,
and the tripe pays its way in a boarding-house.