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to the absence of any information as to the grounds on which the
magistrates based their refusal of the license, and assumed the
accuracy of the altogether erroneous statement made by the
learned counsel for the appellant, viz., that your Vestry withdrew
from the opposition as the works you required to be done, but
which had not been carried out when the license was refused, had
since been executed to your satisfaction. This result of the appeal,
which has decided nothing, is to be regretted, as much in the
appellant's interest as on any other ground, for, setting aside any
other objection to this particular slaughter-house, the important
question raised by your Vestry still awaits a decision of the superior
Court, viz., whether premises are fit and proper to be
licensed as a slaughter-house to which the only access is through
a butcher's shop or dwelling-house ?
This failure excepted, your Vestry have every reason to be
satisfied with the results of the not inconsiderable labour and time
bestowed on this important question. The gains in a sanitary
point of view were thus summed up in my report, dated the
20th October, 1875:-
''Last year we had six slaughter-houses approached through
shops or dwelling-houses; now there are but two. Last year a
very large proportion of the whole number had lairage in, or
not separated from, the slaughter-house; now in every premises
their is separate lairage. Great improvements have also been
effected in the lighting, ventilation, water supply, and general
arrangements of the slaughter-houses, which will be used henceforth
exclusively for the purpose for which they are licensed."
I do not mean to imply that we should be satisfied to allow
matters to rest as they are, for putting aside the preference I
have always avowed for the abattoir system—a system that must
sooner or later displace the present one—I venture to say that
sanitary authorities should not be content till further improvements
have been effected, by new bye-laws, in the existing private
slaughter-houses. Among the chief of these contemplated improvements
I would mention the following, which have been
adopted by the Society of Medical Officers of Health, at my
instance, in the form of suggestive new bye-laws, some of them
being in the number of the conditions" the " Board" require in
the case of new slaughter-houses. The Beport of the Society on
these suggestions is couched in the following terms:-
“ METROPOLITAN SLAUGHTER-HOUSES."
"It is the experience of this Society that the construction of
existing slaughter-houses in the metropolis, as ordered by the
on every side by dwelling houses closely packed. Two tiny stables containing four
horses are in close contiguity to the slaughter-house. The place is very close, and
smells offensively. Whilst the justices are sorry to interfere with Mr. Stimpson's
business, they cannot, in justice to the sanitary interest of the neighbourhood,
recommend a renewal of the license." It should be stated that Mr. Stimpson has
since abolished the stables, and converted them into lairs for cattle and sheep.