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of the nation's health and energy. The public is, however, becoming
better informed each year on matters affecting its health, and
the " Crusade against Tuberculosis " is more especially awakening
an intelligent interest and concern.
The stamping out of tuberculosis from cattle should be carried
out on a national scheme which will involve some considerable expense
at the commencement. Cattle will have to be rigorously inspected,
infected animals isolated or slaughtered and the flesh either
destroyed or appropriately dealt with according to the stage of the
disease. No milk must be drawn from infected animals, and if
efficient inspection of carcasses at the time of slaughter cannot be
carried out in private slaughter-houses, public a attoirs must be
used throughout the whole country and not only in one community here
and there. Among the expenses of such a scheme it is only fair
to include a just and judicious degree of compensation for owners,
for most owners have been put to considerable expense during the
past few years to bring their slaughter-houses up to modern
requirements ; and if the Report of the Public Health Committee
of the London County Council had embodied some recommendation
under this head, it would certainly have lessened the trade opposition
which was instrumental in getting the subject shelved when the
Report came up before the Council at the early part of the present
year. The proper inspection of the meat supply of the metropolis
will, however, have to be provided for in the long run, although it
may be postponed for a while ; and if this cannot be effected in the
existing private slaughter-houses (and in the opinion of those best
qualified to speak, it cannot), these places, which number only some
400 at present, and supply less than a tenth of the meat sold in
London, should not be suffered to stand in the way of a muchneeded
reform.
It is contended by the trade that the establishment of public
slaughterhouses, requiring greater handling and carriage of
recently killed meat, would " destroy the unique characteristics
of home-killed meat " But the amount of handling to which
the carcass is subjected in a well-ordered Continental public
slaughterhouse is trifling compared with that to which it is now
subjected here; the slaughtering in large, well-ventilated halls,
the conveyance by well-arranged machinery into cooling rooms