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Mr. Hart, of the Central Meat and Poultry Markets Association, urged that the establishment
of public slaughterhouses, requiring greater handling and carriage of recently killed meat,
would " destroy the unique characteristics of home-killed meat." I have not the slightest hesitation in
saying that, if meat were to be treated in the public slaughterhouses after killing and in its subsequent
carriage in the same manner as I have seen it treated in thi3 country, there is ample ground for this
contention. The slovenly and disgusting habit of piling the carcases into carts, the driver often sitting
upon the carcases, is, however, in marked contrast to the manner in which meat is treated in well-ordered
foreign cities. Slaughtered in large, well-ventilated halls, conveyed by well-arranged machinery into
cooling rooms where the meat is allowed to set, stored, if the butcher desires it, in his own compartment
in a cold chamber, and conveyed subsequently to his premises in specially constructed well-ventilated
vans, from the roof of which the meat hangs—are conditions unknown in this country. The amount
of handling to which the carcase is subjected in a well-ordered continental public slaughterhouse is
trifling compared with that to which it is now subjected here.
There would be no difficulty in introducing with the public slaughterhouse this cleaner and
better method of treating the meat, and the advantage of the public over the private slaughterhouse
would be soon recognised by the trade.
Reference was also made to the supposed loss of the offal which would result from the abolition
of private slaughterhouses. I have already said that the offal would not be lost, it would be as available
as before. Deptford now supplies offal to London, and the offal from any new public slaughterhouses
would no doubt be equally available. That other meat seriously enters into competition with
offal is, however, very evident.*
Again reference was also made to the alleged difficulty butchers would experience in not being
able to employ their own men in the public slaughterhouses, but this, as I have before said, is an
erroneous impression. Mr. Learner, of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, who expressed to the
Committee his anxieties about his own trade as a stockowner, when he was told that the men employed
in the public slaughterhouses could be the servants of the butchers, replied, " I do not understand they
would be there. If they would, that would put a different face on it altogether, but as I understand
they would appoint a body of slaughtermen and people to do the work in the market." He expressed,
however, the opinion that butchers would be unwilling to avail themselves of this opportunity.
Mr. Coggan, the chairman of the Butchers' Trade Society, called attention to the financial aspect
of the Committee's proposals, and stated that he estimated that the slaughterhouses would cost a million
sterling, which, with expenses of management, would amount to £60,000 annually, whereas, assuming
an inspector at a salary of £150 a year was appointed for every ten private slaughterhouses, the total
expenditure would amount to .£6,000 a year.
I am at a loss to understand how the estimate of one million is arrived at, and I find that the
memorial of the meat and cattle trade section of the Chamber of Commerce mentions " an initial
outlay of probably one million and a-half sterling." I can only conclude it is based on the assumption
that public slaughterhouses will have to be provided for the total London population of millions of
inhabitants instead of for the comparatively small proportion of the population which now derives its
meat supply from private slaughterhouses in London. I am, thanks to the courtesy of the chairman of
the Central Markets Committee of the City Corporation, able to make a rough estimate of the proportion
in which the meat supplied from private slaughterhouses stands to the total meat supply to London, and
I find this estimate points to less than 10 per cent. Using the figures of Osthoff, who has had especial
experience of the cost of construction of public slaughterhouses in Germany, I am led to the conclusion
that to provide slaughterhouses to meet London requirements would cost the Council less than some
improvements undertaken by the Council under the Housing of the Working Classes Act. From the
health point of view such expenditure on public slaughterhouses would be incomparably more
valuable. Such slaughterhouses would serve the purpose of meat inspection stations to which meat
arriving dead in London and not consigned to the City markets would be taken. Beyond these stations
there would not be need of more than two or three meat inspection stations. These would be situated
near the principal railway stations, and the cost of each might be thought of as comparable to the cost
of one of the Council's offices for the inspection of weights and measures. I have already shown in
my report on public slaughterhouses that fees would be charged for their use; fees would also be charged
for the inspection of meat. Members of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis who visited Germany
reported that " all the public slaughterhouses in Germany are self supporting." I see no reason
why public slaughterhouses in London, conducted on similar lines, should not also be self supporting.
The appointment of an inspector to every ten private slaughterhouses would in no way meet the
requirements of the case. For proper inspection it is necessary to ensure that no killing shall be done
without the knowledge and [inspection of the officer. The proposed system of inspection of private
slaughterhouses would give no guarantee of this. Different butchers would be killing at the same
time and the services of the inspector would not be available. In Germany it has been found
impracticable properly to inspect meat in the public slaughterhouses in which each butcher has a separate
killing chamber, and it has been decided to reconstruct such slaughterhouses at great cost on account of
this disability. How much more impossible would the inspection be if these killing chambers were
in different streets ! Attention was especially directed to this faulty construction of publiG slaughterhouses
by the last Royal Commission on Tuberculosis (vide their report, paragraph 32).
Reference was also made to the impracticability of carrying out an efficient system of marking
the meat after inspection in terms which showed very little acquaintance with the procedure adopted
in this respect on the Continent. There is no reason that what is an every-day piece of work abroad
should be impracticable in this country.
* Mr. W. Cooper informed the Public Health Committee that a gentleman on his committee only the other
day told him "that he would be prepared to supply anyone with a ton of wholesome mutton at twopence a pound."