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serious epidemic of a fearfully destructive character is with good
cause apprehended. There is ample proof that nearly all the diseased
animals have found their way into the butchers' shops, and have
been eaten either in joints or minced up into sausages or saveloys.
Very recently I found in the Slaughter Houses of the New Cattle
Market on one day three diseased animals just slaughtered; and
the meat was about to be sent to Newgate Market, for sale as human
food. If this is done in a public slaughter house in open daylight,
what may we fairly expect in places less readily open to view ? On
another occasion, in the same place, I found a beast, suffering from an
aggravated form of lung disease, just about to be killed. This place
appears to be entirely without authoritative inspection.
Pacts recently published in a letter addressed to Sir George Grey
on the cattle plague and diseased meat in relation to the public
health, by Mr. J. S. Gamgee, portray in the strongest colours the
evils of the present state of things. Just now, when there is reason
to dread the inroad of a murrain from the Continent, it appears the
more necessary to call attention to these evils, which require the most
immediate interference of Government.
COW HOUSES.
Several cases have occurred during the year of manifest injury
to health and even accelerated death from these places. I hope soon
to lay before you a set of regulations, which I would recommend
for adoption, to keep these places in a state more tolerable, both to
the cows themselves and to neighbouring inhabitants. In several
cases improvements have been ordered in these places and effected;
but the evils are so great and extensive that measures of a more
radical nature are required. Independently of the nuisance to the
neighbourhood, and the injury to health by furnishing unwholesome
milk, there is another most serious aspect of the London system
of cowkeeping. The want of ventilation and cleanliness renders the
cows particularly liable to diseases, especially those of the lungs, the
skin, the udder, and the feet. These diseases, so long as they do
not interfere materially with the supply of milk, are almost unheeded,
but so soon as this fails to such an extent as to render the
cow more expense than profit, she is sent to the butcher, and is
made to supply the meat market with food of a most unwholesome
kind.
GAS WORKS.
These are monster nuisances. During the year, in consequence
of representations made to the Imperial Gas Company, one part of
their process has been conducted under cover, which was formerly
carried on in the open air.