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14
constant moisture arising from them, together with decomposing
organic matter, exercises a very pernicious effect on the health of
the inhabitants.
I am glad to hear that the Vestry have arranged to make roads
in Agar Town, and hope they will soon take in hand the other
districts.
WATER SUPPLY.
On this subject I hope shortly to give a separate detailed report,
and in it I shall also allude to the soil of the Parish.
OFFENSIVE OR NOXIOUS TRADES.
There are in this Parish a considerable number coming under
the above designation. The slaughter-houses have been fully examined
during the year, and have been licensed under the Metropolitan
Market Act. One underground place, totally unfit for slaughtering,
was licensed in spite of the opposition of the Vestry. The whole of
the licensed places are now periodically inspected, as frequently as
other engagements will permit, by the Sanitary Inspector, and any
butchers proved to be killing in unlicensed places are prosecuted.
Three have been fined during the year for the last offence. There
is no doubt that a great improvement has taken place in the slaughterhouses
of the Parish; but still there are too many of them in crowded
districts, and unless great cleanliness is observed in these, it will
be advisable for the Vestry to oppose the renewal of the licenses
hereafter. It is impossible that slaughtering of animals can be
carried on amongst a dense population without proving more or less
injurious to the public health. This it does in several ways, by
occasioning the escape of effluvia from decomposing animal refuse
into the air and along the drains, and by the numerous trades to
which it gives rise in the neighbourhood which are offensive and
noxious, such as gut spinning, tallow melting, bladder blowing,
and paunch cleansing.
It is to be hoped that the licensing of innumerable small
slaughter-houses is only a temporary measure to give place to the
adoption of a few public slaughter-houses in open situations, and
regularly open to constant inspection. One very yreat evil in allowing
slaughtering on a small scale, is that it affords facilities for the
disposing of diseased animals. There is no doubt that a large number
of diseased cattle are slaughtered and sold as healthy meat.
During the last few years there has been a very fatal epidemic
prevalent amongst cows in London, attended with low inflammation
of the lungs and pleurae, and at the present time a much more