Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]
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made in two cases prohibiting the use of houses "unfit for human
habitation" by reason of insanitary conditions. A pig-keeper in
the Potteries was fined ten shillings for keeping swine on prohibited
premises, two proprietors of licensed slaughter-houses were
fined £3 each for breach of the regulations made by the Local
Authority under the provisions of the Slaughter Houses (Metropolis)
Act, 1874, and heavy penalties, even as high as .£10, were
imposed on several persons for neglect or refusal to obey the
magistrates' orders for the execution of sanitary works, or for the
abatement of nuisances: there were 17 instances of such disobedience
in the course of the year.
THE LICENSED SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.
The licensed slaughter-houses are 29 in number, 20 of them
being situated north of Uxbridge Road, and 9 in the remainder of
the parish south of that road. (Vide Table XI., Appendix, for
localities of premises and names of licensees).
The several premises were inspected in the month of July by
the Works, Sanitary and General Purposes Committee, who
reported inter alia, as follows:—
The several premises were found in good structural repair, and, on the whole
fairly clean. On no previous occasion have your Committee seen so little
slaughtering going on; and, according to the statements of the licensees,
few of them have been killing to any great extent for some time past,
whilst others have depended entirely on the dead-meat markets.
At several of the slaughter-houses there was an insufficient number of "tubs,
boxes, or vessels" for "receiving and conveying away manure, garbage,
offal, filth, and blood," and in some cases the receptacles had
not "tight and close-fitting covers." It appeared that the vessels originally
provided had become worn out, or so battered that the covers would not
fit, or that the covers themselves were defective and useless, and that no
steps had been taken to provide new receptacles or new covers. The
attention of the licensees should be drawn to the provisions of the 5th
Bye-law, which deals with this matter.
Your Committee note with satisfaction that every slaughter-house now
appears to be drained with an "appropriate trap" of the syphon kind,
and that, with one or two exceptions, the grating over the gulley is
fixed. In some instances, however, the spaces between the bars of the
grating is greater than allowed by Bye-law 16, viz., 3/8 inch.
Your Committee note with satisfaction also that increased attention appears
to be now given to the watering of the animals in the lairs, but in very