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81
2. The Public Health (Meat) Regulations, 1924, as regards stalls,
shops, stores and vehicles, gave rise to an endless amount of work.
Instructions were issued to all concerned after prolonged consideration
by the Council, and at this moment it can confidently be said that
not one inch of meat can be found anywhere in Deptford projecting
beyond the front line of an open window. Trestles in front of shops
are things of the past.
Four retailers were prosecuted successfully in Court, fines and costs
being made and awarded. The magistrate ruled that meat should be
kept behind the window line and should be covered with gauze. He
would not enforce the putting in of windows, but this point is not acute
in Deptford as we had persuaded some to put in windows before going
to court, and many already had windows. Comment was made in
court and elsewhere as to the ambiguity of the Regulations, but your
Medical Officer thinks too much has been made of this.
At the commencement of the Regulations in April, 1924, a record
was made with the following result:
1. Shops.
(a) Butchers with windows, 51.
(b) Butchers without windows, 15.
(c) Bacon dealers with windows, 166.
(d) Bacon dealers without windows, 2.
(e) Butchers and cooked food shops 66, with windows (51 of them
are butchers, as above; there are only 2 purely cooked food shops in
the borough).
(f) Beef and bacon shops with windows, 3.
2. Stalls.
Butchers, 7.
Bacon, 1.
By the close of 1925 the shops without windows were:—
Butchers 9.
Offal 2.
Bacon 2.
Stalls not complying:—
Butchers 1.
The question now before us is as to requiring gauze to protect the
meat from contamination from flies. Contamination from mud and dust
is now a thing of the past locally. Meat is no longer hung out to cool
or exposed for any other reason.