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90
v.—FOOD.
§1. FOOD PREMISES.
The licensed slaughter-houses and offensive trade premises, and also the
registered cowsheds, dairies, and milkshops, have been inspected periodically.
Places where food is manufactured, especially where tripe, sausages and
polonies, extracts of meat, and ice-creams are made, and shops and places
where food is sold, have been regularly visited. The markets and marketing
streets have been kept under frequent observation, and also visited on Saturday
nights and Sunday mornings during the summer months.
Bakehouses, restaurant kitchens, and similar workplaces fall under the
Factory and Workshop Acts in Part IV. of this Report.
Public versus Private Slaughter-houses.—The word "abattoirs," which is not
English, merely tends to confuse the issue of any discussion as to "slaughterhouses."
The real questions at issue are whether slaughter-houses should be
dotted about a town (segregated) so as to render it impossible to continuously
inspect them and keep the animals and meat in them under observation, or
whether they should be concentrated in one spot (aggregated), and if concentrated
in one spot whether they should belong to a number of private
individuals, a company, or a municipality. When the policy of concentration
is adopted it usually follows that, failing others, the municipality steps in and
erects public slaughter-houses, but there is nothing to prevent a company from
doing the same thing. The great difficulty is to transfer the slaughtering from
the segregated to the aggregated slaughter-houses. Aggregation at some
distance from the selling places but wiih increased facilities for supervision
has to be weighed against segregation in proximity to the selling places, but
with increased difficulties of supervision. Thus, the balance of opinion lies
between the public interest in having a complete and continuous supervision
of animals and meat intended for human food, and the personal interest in
saving the expense of the carriage of dead meat from the place of slaughter to
the place of sale, and in this connection those butchers who have no slaughterhouses
and the increasing sale of imported dead meat, not supervised at or
before slaughter, have to be taken into consideration.
§2. UNWHOLESOME FOOD.
Ice Creams.—Part VIII., Ice creams, sections 42, 43, and 44 of the London
County Council (General Powers) Act, 1902, were quoted in the Annual
Rejiort for 1902, under Part VI., Legislation.
Since a notice quoting these sections was distributed the following further
notice for the guidance of the makers and vendors of ice creams has been
printed and distributed to them:—
ST. PANCRAS BOROUGH COUNCIL.
Public Health Department.
Regulations to be observed by persons being Manufacturers of, or Merchants,
or Dealers in ice creams, or other similar commodity within the Metropolitan
Borough of St. Pancras.
1.—No such commodity must be manufactured, sold, or stored in
insanitary premises, nor in any cellar, shed, or room in which there
is any inlet or opening to a drain, or which is used as a living room
or sleeping room.