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43
MEAT INSPECTIONS AT SLAUGHTERHOUSES.
The Sanitary Committee of the City Corporation gave very careful consideration,
during 1932, to the possibility of strengthening the existing powers of Local Authorities in
connection with the slaughtering of animals for human food and subsequent inspection
of the carcase. The general law relating to the inspection and destruction of unsound meat
is contained in Section 47 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and under the powers
conferred by that Act, responsible officials may inspect and examine any article intended
for the food of man, and sold or exposed for sale, or deposited in any place for the purpose
of sale, or of preparation for sale, and if he finds it to be diseased, unsound, unwholesome
or unfit, he is required to take it before a justice, who in turn examines it, condemns it and
orders that it shall be destroyed or so disposed of as to prevent it from being used for human
consumption, and the person to whom the same belongs at the time of sale or in whose
possession or on whose premises the same is found is liable to heavy penalties.
The City of London (Various Powers) Act, 1911, gave further powers to the Corporation,
rendering any person sending, consigning or delivering, or causing to be sent, consigned
or delivered, such meat, liable to similar penalties.
The question with regard to actual slaughtering of animals for sale for human consumption
is dealt with by the Public Health (Meat) Regulations, 1924. Under these Regulations,
except where the slaughter takes place in a slaughterhouse under the management of
a local authority, a person may not slaughter an animal for sale for human consumption
unless he has, at least three hours before the time of slaughter, notified the local authority
of the district in which the place of slaughter is situated. Where, however, it is the regular
practice in any slaughterhouse to slaughter animals at fixed times on fixed days, and written
notice of this practice has been given, special notice is not required in respect of any animal
slaughtered in accordance with such practice.
The Regulations also deal with emergency slaughter, and they further require the
person by, or on whose behalf, an animal is slaughtered, forthwith to notify the local authority
where it appears that any part of the carcase or internal organs is or may be diseased. The
carcase of such animal and certain internal organs may not be removed until after inspection
or until its removal has been authorised. This regulation, however, does not apply in the
case of sheep or any animal in respect of whose slaughter special notice is not required to
be given, unless some part of the carcase or organs appears to be diseased or unsound.
The Regulations, however, authorise removal at the expiration of three hours from the
time of slaughter or six hours from the delivery of any notice in relation thereto, whichever
is the later. The Regulations are so framed as to make it difficult for the slaughterman
or the person on whose behalf the diseased animal was slaughtered to explain how any meat
which is seized or surrendered on deposit for sale on account of obvious disease or unsoundness
was despatched without the inspection of the local authority at the place of slaughter,
and the slaughterman is expected to know in general the appearance of a carcase and offal
which is sound and free from disease.
The evidence obtained as a result of investigation in the seizures in Smithfield Market
may show either (1) that the local authority has provided insufficient inspection, or (2) as
it more often happens, that evasion has been attempted.
In all the circumstances, the present Regulations have certainly been effective in securing
a general improvement in meat inspection conditions. Their limitation, however, at present
lies in the paucity of competent meat inspectors, and in the disinclination of local authorities
to increase the burden of local taxation by the appointment of such additional inspectors
as will be necessary to ensure that every carcase slaughtered in their area is seen before
dispatch to market.
The obvious and complete solution of the whole question seems to be in the provision
of centralised lairages and abattoirs, where sufficient inspection would be a much more
simple matter. The closing of scattered slaughterhouses would then not be the impossible
task that it is at present. Advocacy of this, however, the City Corporation quite recognises,
is untimely at the present moment, but when, at some future date, circumstances permit,
appropriate steps will doubtless be taken to further the improvement of meat inspection
this indicates.