View report page

258
1910]
operator is in perfect health he can only impart into the tissues of the meat vitiated air,
and as you will no doubt remember I have previously related my personal experience of a
slaughterman in an advanced stage of consumption (who ultimately succumbed to the disease)
being engaged where no special apparatus was provided for inflation.
It is somewhat singular that in the County of London, where the blowing of meat
obtains to a greater extent than has been my experience in other parts of the country, no
powers exist for dealing with it, although some of the Urban Authorities immediately outside
London possess them.
Another matter requiring attention is that of the custom in some instances of emptying
or puncturing the bowels of animals in the same room as that in which the carcases are
hanging, whereas, in my opinion, the stomach and bowels should not be opened or wilfully
punctured until removed from that room either into the open air or into some other room
which does not ventilate into the slaughterhouse.
To say that the carcase should be removed from the slaughterhouse after it is
dressed to a suitable cooling room would be practically impossible in the average London
slaughterhouse. Neither, in my opinion, is such a course necessary if the abdominal
organs are removed therefrom before being opened or punctured, as this is the only source of
obnoxious effluvium in the process of slaughter, and even this would not be noticeable at a
very short distance if discharged in the open air, so that no nuisance would likely be experienced
on adjoining property. The number of animals slaughtered during the year was
as follows, viz:—
Oxen Calves Sheep and Lambs Pigs Total
1691 91 36,176 Nil 37,958
That of the previous year being as under, viz:—
Oxen Calves Sheep and Lambs Pigs Goats Total
1,769 100 36,479 Nil 2 38,350
It will thus be seen that 392 fewer animals were killed than in the previous year,
but the average per slaughterhouse would be actually greater in the latter year.
It is a pleasure to report that the quality of the animals generally has again been
quite above the average of what is shewn in an ordinary fat stock market, or slaughtered in
any municipal abattoir of which I have had experience. I have no fear of contradiction
in saying that the average supply of meat from the Islington private slaughterhouses, not
only during the past year, but extending over many years in succession, has not only been
equal to, but decidedly better, than that of any public abattoir of which I have had knowledge.
I do not wish to infer that a higher standard of inspection obtains here than in most
municipal slaughterhouses, or that meat is passed in the latter that ought to be condemned,
but the principal difference lies in the fact that a good percentage of the live stock throughout
the country consists of animals (male and female) that have served their day in the
propagation of their species, or for dairy purposes; as well as the thousands of animals
that inherit a predisposition to tuberculosis and other diseases which are too often disseminated
amongst them by their insanitary surroundings in rural districts, with the result that