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114
* MEAT SUPPLIES AT THE CENTRAL MEAT MARKET.
Although deliveries of meat to the Central Market do not quite reach the
record of 1906, they still show a weight some 1,500 tons in excess of any
previous year, and although the falling off in the quantity actually condemned
as unfit for human food is satisfactory as showing some improvement in
methods of transit, yet it could hardly be contended that the quality of meat
on which the population of London lives, is not making retrograde movements
year by year. Why this should be, the reasons for it, and the
prospect for the future, are subjects which may well form matter for consideration
in this year's report, in the hope that, from our experience in the past,
may be gathered wisdom which shall guide us in the future.
The supply to the Central Market comprises:—
(а) English Town killed.
(b) British Country killed, including Scotch.
(c) Foreign killed (i.e. Continental, &c.)
(d) American Home killed.
(e) American and Argentine refrigerated.
(f) Australian, New Zealand, and Argentine frozen.
(a).— Taking them in this order, the town-killed meat consists of beef
from the Metropolitan Cattle Market, Islington, pigs consigned to the
slaughtermen there, and when killed sent to Smithfield to be sold, sheep and
lambs purchased by carcase butchers, and after slaughter, marketed here.
The British cattle trade has been in an unsatisfactory condition throughout
the year, the cold season has not conduced to the fattening of the animals,
and the placing of large army contracts in the hands of the Americans has
been productive of results far from encouraging. The Corporation has
re-modelled the methods of slaughtering at the Metropolitan Cattle Market,
and it is hoped it will attract the productions of some of the better class
graziers, and as the United States has sent us some 50,000 fewer bullocks this
year than last, there may yet be a future for the English beef trade. The pigs
in this category have been throughout of satisfactory quality, though cases of
tuberculosis are still distressingly numerous amongst them. The sheep also
have been of good quality, very free from disease, and have almost invariably
realised satisfactory prices, indeed, mutton has throughout the year been the
bright spot of the Home trade.
For the remarks on pp. 114-117 I am indebted to Mr. G. P. Terrett, Chief Inspector of Slaughterhouses
and Meat.