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2. The need of offal for the poor, who would not be as well supplied with it if there were
no private slaughterhouses. It is possible to carry it at some times of the year, but practically
impossible to carry it at others.
3. Meat would not "set" properly before removal, and would as a result be " muddled "
and decompose more rapidly.
4. Trade would be driven into hands of wholesale men, and monopoly created.
5. Expenses would be increased by necessity of driving cattle to public slaughterhouses
and afterwards carrying meat to the shops.
6. Expenses would be increased by necessity of having men who call for orders in the
morning, and who are now able to be employed in killing in the afternoon, but for whom with
a public slaughterhouse system there would be no such employment.
7. The loss of some of the fat, &c., would be incurred if animals were killed in public
slaughterhouses. .
Since this Committee reported the system of meat supply of London has undergone vast changes,
insomuch that objections to the abolition of private slaughterhouses which could not unreasonably be
offered in 1873 would not be urged at the present time.
I may, however, make the following observations on the above objections. With respect to
objection No. 1, the Agricultural Returns issued by the Board of Agriculture (Appendix I.)
show that while the number of cattle, sheep and pigs received into the Metropolitan Cattle
Market has been diminishing, the foreign cattle market at Deptford, where all animals received
into the market are killed on the premises, has been increasingly used, and hence the supplies from this
market have had a considerable effect in placing at the disposal of the meat vendor large quantities of
dead meat which before 1873 would, if received into the metropolis, have been killed in the private
slaughterhouses of London.
But beyond this London now receives much larger supplies of dead meat from other parts of
the United Kingdom, and to this must be added the American, Australian and New Zealand killed
fresh meat, which enters the Central Market to an extent of more than two million hundredweights each
year (see Appendix II.). Moreover opportunities of storing meat in cold chambers, which were unknown
in 1873, are now increasingly provided ; private slaughterhouses have therefore become less necessary
to the meat vendor, and the number of these premises has steadily diminished, so much so that with
an estimated population in London in 1873 of 3,386,267 persons, there were about 1,500 private
slaughterhouses; whereas with an estimated population in 1897 of 4,484,720 persons, there are
in addition to the slaughterhouses in the Islington and Deptford Cattle Markets 467 private
slaughterhouses exclusive of 6 or 8 in the City. Thus while the population has increased some
32 per cent., the number of private slaughterhouses has diminished some 69 per cent. It is obvious
therefore that whatever part the private slaughterhouses played in supplying London with meat
in 1873 their share in supplying the larger population of twenty-four years later is infinitely smaller.
No one would pretend to say now that in hot weather, without private slaughterhouses, there would be
no meat in London, although claim may, under existing circumstances, be reasonably made by retail
meat vendors for facilities for killing animals in London.
With respect to No. 2, the London poor are much less dependent than formerly upon the offal
for food supply, and the killing of animals in a number of well-distributed public slaughterhouses does
not imply that the offal of the comparatively small number of animals killed in them would be lost.
With respect to No. 3, there is no reason why the meat should be removed from a public
slaughterhouse before it is " set." Where storage in cold chambers in the public slaughterhouses is
provided for the butcher, he can store his meat and draw from his supplies that which he needs tor sale
in his shop.
With respect to No. 4, there is no reason to anticipate that the trade will be driven into
the hands of wholesale men, and a monopoly be created, if opportunity is given to every meat vendor
who desires it to take his cattle to a public slaughterhouse and kill them there, instead of into a private
slaughterhouse.
With respect to No. 5, there would be saving of expense if the meat vendor could convey his
cattle by railway from the market to a public slaughterhouse within reasonable distance of his shop.
With respect to No. 6, the men in the service of the meat vendor could be equally employed in
killing the cattle in the public slaughterhouse as in the private slaughterhouse.
With respect to No. 7, there is no reason why the killing of the cattle by the meat vendor's men
in a public slaughterhouse should lead to loss of the fat, &c., which could, by arrangement between those
usinsj the slaughterhouses, be easily disposed of on the premises.
It may be well here to refer briefly to the objections which were in ] 873 urged against private
slaughterhouses. These were in the main based upon the nuisance such premises caused and upon the
necessity of driving cattle through the streets of London. So far as nuisance is concerned, I believe
this objection has been in large degree met by the improvements which have been effected in these
places by the Metropolitan Board of Works and the London County Council, and it is right that I
should here bear witness to the willingness with which the occupiers of slaughterhouses have complied
with the increased demands of the Council for improvement of their premises and for the better
regulation of their business. I do not of course suggest that many of these premises are not still
faulty both in respect of situation and the accommodation provided. These are conditions which are
inherited from a past time, and which are not easily removable. Again, in the conduct of the business
there is occasional failure to comply with the Council's by-laws, and from time to time the Council
finds it necessary to apply to the magistrate for penalties against the offenders. These occasions are,
however, comparatively infrequent, and as a whole I believe the business of a slaughterer of cattle in
London is conducted with due observance of the regulations. Moreover, the practice of driving cattle
through the streets of the metropolis has been greatly reduced owing to the decrease in the number