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73
(b) Meat. Action taken with regard to Meat and other foods,
slaughterhouses, etc.

The number of butchers' stalls has been reduced from 7 to 5, while
there is still one bacon stall in Douglas Street.
Two years ago I reported that these Regulations caused an immense
amount of work; it is satisfactory to record that this work, together with
the persuasive effect of four prosecutions, has virtually extinguished
trestles and boards in front of shop windows. The great majority of
butchers give no trouble; one or two, however, still endeavour to push
out a trestle occasionally, but these are soon detected and persuaded to
conform. In the Court cases, the magistrate ruled that meat should be
kept behind the window lines and should be covered with gauze. He
would not enforce the putting in of windows, but the study of the table
above will show that the "window" question is not an acute one in the
Borough. During the summer of 1927, practically all butchers did
their best, by various means, to combat the fly nuisance, and with
varying degrees of success. It was noted particularly that fewer flies
existed in shops provided with closed glass windows. With closed
windows, electric fans, and certain liquid preparations (near to which
the flies will not come) flies can be kept in check. The open shop
presents the biggest difficulty, for an adequate protection of the meat
in these instances is a genuine difficulty; this has been improved by
the use of side blinds. The old-fashioned belief of the butchers that
business can only be done provided the whole stock in-trade is spread
out in front of the shop, half way across the footpath to the gutter, is
no doubt hard to kill, but local butchers who have adopted the closed
glass windows are now saying that it is far preferable to the openfronted
shop, is cleaner in every way, that their trade has not suffered,
and lastly, that the keeping quality of the meat is considerably improved.
The standard of cleanliness of the butchers' shops and their cold stores