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51
of "establishing anew" within the limits of the Act, "the
business of a knacker," which term (in the definition clause'
12) is stated to mean "a person whose business it is to
slaughter any horse, ass, or mule, or any cattle, sheep, goat
or swine, which is not kided for the purpose of its flesh
being used for butchers' meat."
On the 12th April the Coroner opened his enquiry, but very little
information was forthcoming on that occasion. I therefore suggested
an adjournment and that all the persons who had in any way been
connected with the diseased horses should be subpoenaed to give
evidence. At the adjourned inquest, the Privy Council and the Local
Authority were both represented; and, clothed with the authority conferred
on me by your Vestry I was, by the courtesy of the Coroner,
enabled to elicit from the several witnesses facts which created a strong
impression on the public mind, but which, being now matter of notoriety,
need not be dwelt on here. Suffice it to say that, notwithstanding the
tergiversation of some of the witnesses, who had previously given me
information, the non-compliance with the law, as laid down in the Contagious
Diseases (Animals) Act, and in the "Animals Order" of the
Privy Council, in all the respects above stated, was substantially proved.
I was enabled, moreover, to show that an unauthorised business of a
"knacker," on an extensive scale, had been carried on for a long time
at Notting Hill by Mr. Tedder, a horse-dealer—who had purchased the
diseased animals, which he had taken to his own premises and there
pole-axed them, and who had removed carcases thence, and from
Colville Mews, to the premises of a licensed horse slaughterer at
Wandsworth, whose books proved that he had already in the present
year received more than eighty dead horses from Mr. Tedder. It was
elicited from unwilling witnesses, moreover, that on an average three
or four horses a week had been killed by this person. The licensed
horse slaughterer admitted that the flesh of glandered horses is habitually
cooked and sold for cat's meat; that the fat is melted down for
sale (but for what purposes it is used he "did not know"); and that
the skins are sent to the fellmo ger in the ordinary way of business.
The "Order" of the Privy Council, as before stated, provides for the
destruction of the entire carcase by heat or chemical agents, or for its
burial.