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44
population has been increasing, there has been a decrease of nearly
26 per cent. in the number of slaughter-houses of the district. This
decrease is going on all over London, and is no doubt largely due to
the importation of increasing quantities of slaughtered animals.
This foreign meat is also largely sold to the public as British meat,
and an enhanced price is charged for it. Many thousands of
Londoners consume foreign meat under the impression that they are
being supplied with the meat of native fed animals. Where butchers
can profitably carry on their business in this way, there is less
necessity for slaughter-houses in the districts.
The decrease in the number of slaughter-houses is so rapid, that it
would not be out of place to revive the question of providing one
central slaughter-house for the district, to be under local control or
County Council control. The advantages to the public of such centralising
has already been dealt with by the Medical Officer of Health to
the London County Council in his report on this subject.
I may briefly state here the advantages of a central abbatoir.
1. There would be a complete control over the quality of meat
imported into the district.
2. Measures could be adopted to distinguish foreign meat, so
that it may not be sold for home fed and slaughtered meat.
During the last decenium there has been an increase of population
in Hackney from 198,606 to 219,288, about 10 per cent.; but as seen
above there has been a decrease in the number of slaughter-houses in
the district of 26 per cent. These two facts of course prove that the
butchers of the district purchase more meat, large quantities of it
being foreign carcases, the home slaughtered decreasing in the same
ratio.
In order to show how much of the meat consumed is slaughtered
in the districts, I have made enquiries at all the slaughter-houses in
the district, and find that during the year 1902 there were in the