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INSPECTION OF FOOD.
Extracts from a Report to the Public Health Committee on the 24th January, 1907.
With a view to determining the extent to which foodstuffs are brought into London by rail, and
comparing the amounts so conveyed with the quantities coming in to the Port of London, I have had
inquiries made by the Council's officers and have made use of various official returns and of an article
on the " Food of London," in the Quarterly Review of 1899-1000. The result is to indicate as an estimate
that the total bulk of foodstuffs reaching London annually is approximately between and 3 million
tons, of which amount some three-fifths are consumed by the inhabitants of London, the remaining
two-fifths merely passing through in the course of transit elsewhere.
Of this total, 2| or 3 millions, rather more than two-thirds, arrive by water, and less than one-third
by rail.
The whole mass may be regarded as including three classes of foodstuffs .
Tons.
(1) Meat, fish, milk, butter, lard, eggs, etc., approximately 1,000,000
(2) Fruit and vegetables (including preserved fruit and sugar) 500,000
(3) Grain and flour (estimated as grain) 1,400,000
Very differing results are obtained on dividing these different classes of food up into the amounts
which, respectively, are land and water borne. Thus, while more than 80 per cent, of the grain and flour
are brought into the Port, and only 20 per cent, comes by land, and more than 70 per cent, of the fruit
vegetables, preserved fruit and sugar, etc., is brought into the Port, and only 30 per cent, comes by land,
the quantities of the first-class of foodstuffs conveyed by water and by rail are approximately equal.
It transpires therefore that the railway traffic in these classes of foodstuffs, which specially need examination
from the public health point of view, is practically equivalent in amount to the river traffic.
Moreover, if the items making up the total sum of foodstuffs here in question be considered in a more
detailed manner, it will be found that the amount of meat arriving by water is about twice that arriving
by rail; the amount of fish.arriving by water is about one-third that arriving by rail; and again, it is
deserving of note that the bulk of the milk arrives by rail.
It should be observed that some of the foodstuffs arriving in the Port are doubtless included
subsequently in totals returned from railway stations. It will, moreover, be of course recollected that
the amounts given represent total inflow into London, and that a considerable percentage of this inflow
is merely in transit, on its way to the population of Greater London, or to more distant destinations.
A considerable portion of the total amount of food entering is taken to certain well-known markets,
meat to Smithfield, fish to Billingsgate, vegetables and fruit to Covent Garden, and so on, but no insignificant
amount is conveyed directly to the retailer. This last fact is not generally recognised, for there
is a prevalent opinion that a complete system of market inspection is all that is necessary to protect the
health of the public. It may be mentioned that the writer in the Quarterly Review, 1899, on "The
Food of London, "stated as a fact that much food reaches the London consumer "without passing through
a London market."This conclusion the inquiries of the Council's inspectors, made at the 26 chief
railway depots in London, generally confirm ; but the information obtained by the Council s officers brings
out very clearly two points which deserve to be specially considered.
In the first place, meat, poultry, eggs, etc., even when consigned to market salesmen, are frequently
taken to cold storage, or to a warehouse before being exposed for sale. In the second place, the foods which
would appear to stand particularly in need of inspection constitute a considerable percentage of the
material never taken to market at all. Thus the smaller consignments of meat and fish are in numerous
instances sent direct to particular retail dealers, and these smaller consignments, in some instances,
include boned meat, offal, cats' meat, etc., which have undergone no inspection when the animals were
killed, and are certainly not destined to undergo inspection in any London market.
From the notes made by the inspectors at particular stations, it appears, for example, that they
found "pigs' heads," "offal and plucks consigned to potted meat makers," "brawn consigned to a
shopkeeper," "very many private consignments of fish," "offal to cold storage or to private consignees,"
"loads of offal consigned direct to a contractor;" and the entry "cats' meat to various consignees in the
East-end of London" is a continually recurring one.
The question of the cats' meat industry indeed is one which merits careful consideration. About
1,000 tons of cats' meat, consigned as such, are received annually at London railway stations, and any
attempted explanation of this large amount must also meet the fact that the bulk of the 1,000 tons is
consigned to the East-end of London. The continental export of "Jacko" (chopped horse flesh)
is said to have fallen off considerable of late years, though price lists are still sent from abroad to East-end
sausage makers. There can, of course, be no doubt that much cats' meat is still eaten by human beings
in London. It is largely sold in extremely poor neighbourhoods, and the women seen buying "fourpenny
worth," or "fivepennyworth" are clearly not buying for cats. One vendor of cats' meat has stated
that he had a customer whose practice it was to buy " greens " at the same time as the cats' meat.
The Council's inspectors call attention to the facts concerning a particular cats' meat dealer "A,"
which throw some light on the dark side of the cats' meat trade. This dealer receives raw cow flesh,
admittedly unfit for human food, and raw horse flesh, which, he states, he boils for cats" meat, but he has
no boiling appliances on the premises, and, as a matter of fact, he has been found to slice the cow flesh
and dress it with a preservative. The man who supplies "A" with raw cow flesh supplies a well-known
cats' meat dealer "B" with boiled horse flesh, and "A" sends this same dealer "B" his raw horse flesh
because he has no boiling apparatus. The question raised by the Council's inspectors is,"What becomes