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having been either refused or not applied for at the licensing
session held in October, 1875. The Works, Sanitary and General
Purposes Committee viewed the several slaughter-houses in the
month of September, and reported on them in the following
terms:—
"Your Committee have to report that several of the 'premises' are
very small, and the ' slaughter house ' itself cramped for room, especially
where a portion of it has been cut off for the purpose of making a pen for
the accommodation of the cattle, the pen usually receiving light and air
through the slaughter-house. In some of these cases the partition is a
mere railing, the living animals being able to see the killing, while the
atmosphere of the slaughter-house (in which the carcases are hung to
'cool' and ' set') must be vitiated by their excretions, as they are sometimes
kept in the pens for three or four days.
"As the bye-laws forbid even a communication between a stable and a
slaughter-house, the object being to preserve the latter in as sweet and
wholesome a condition as possible, it appears to your Committee that pens
should not be allowed to be within the slaughter-house, for it is practically
an evasion to say that a railed-off slice or corner of the chamber
used for killing is not a part of the ' slaughter-house ' as defined in the
bye-laws, and as distinguished from the remainder of the ' premises.' The
lairage should be separate and distinct from the slaughter-house, communicating
with it by a doorway only. Your Vestry have already
resolved to oppose the renewal of the license where such separate lairage
is not provided, and your Committee, after inspection, entirely agree in
the propriety of that decision. Your Vestry have also decided to oppose
the renewal of the license where there is no approach to the slaughterhouse
save over the foot pavement and through a shop or a dwellinghouse
; and your Committee, having inspected all the premises of this
description, believe that this course is a proper one, for not only is the
approach in these cases very defective, but the doorways also are so
narrow that it is difficult to understand how the beasts are got through
them. Your Committee found several of the slaughter-houses still used
as cart-sheds, notwithstanding the bye-law which forbids the use of a
slaughter-house for any other purpose than that for which it is licensed.
" A large number of the slaughter-houses having been inspected on the
afternoon of Friday, your Committee had the advantage of seeing the
business in full operation, and were not favourably impressed by the
mode in which it is conducted, for not only were there (as a rule) no ' tubs,
boxes, or vessels formed out of proper non-absorbent materials, with tight
and close-fitting covers thereto, for the purpose of receiving and conveying
away all manure, garbage, offal, filth, and blood,' as required by the
bye-laws (which have been in the possession of the butchers for many
weeks), but even whore such receptacles were found, they were rarely in
use, or only used to receive so much of the blood, etc., as would not run
into the drains. To facilitate this disposition of the products of slaughtering,
in one case that came under the notice of your Committee, the
trap of the drain had been removed, while in another the drain itself was
blocked with clotted blood. Your Committee are of opinion that the
grating over the gulley should be a fixture, for so long as it is moveable,
and while bell traps continue to be used, there is no security that the
blood, etc., will be caught and stored for removal. Your Committee
desire to call particular attention to this point, which raises the question
whether a ' bell-trap,' removable at will, can be fairly desoribed
as ' an appropriate trap ' for a slaughter-house, seeing that it offers no
obstacle to the improper disposal of blood and excrementitious matters, or
even of the entrails of smaller animals, by which, in some cases, they are
informed, the drains have been obstructed.
"Your Committee have not felt it their duty on the present occasion
to enter at any further length on defects in the ' conduct of the business,