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86
This meat is removed under agreement by Messrs. C. & H.
Webb, Bone and Tallow Melters, 155, Bow Road, London, E.
Messrs. Webb have their factory in Bow Common Lane, and pay
the Borough Council one penny per stone of eight pounds for
all the meat removed.
In the summary of the meat seized given above, there is a cat,
which deserves a little fuller notice.
This cat came as one of a consignment of rabbits and packed
in a case with them in the ordinary way from Ostend. The
circumstances were these-the cat, a fat, sleek, well-matured
animal, weighing about 4 lbs., had been decapitated, its tail
removed, and its carcase had been dexterously attached to the
emaciated head of a rabbit, sewn on by ordinary grey thread.
The rabbit's head was much emaciated and probably belonged
to a diseased animal, so that its carcase was useless. The cat
was offered as an efficient substitute.
At this time rabbits were very dear-and cost about eightpence
a pound wholesale.
On a previous occasion three carcases of cat-rabbit had been
confiscated in like manner.
The moral is obvious-persons buying foreign rabbits should
make sure that the animal bought is first of all a rabbit, and,
secondly, that the head is attached to the trunk by flesh, continuous
with both, and not by thread or any other artificial
means.
A complaint was received in the Public Health Department
from a man who had bought a bottle of lemon squash and later
discovered that the bottle contained a large portion of the backbone
of a fish and some other black granular débris.