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99
few instances has a permanent receptacle for water been provided, or the
water laid on to the lairs as recommended by your Vestry.
At the last Licensing Sessions in October, 1880, reference was made to the
difficulties the licensees experienced in getting offal, blood, &c., removed
from the slaughter-houses, as required by the Bye-laws; and subsequently
a large number of the licensees addressed a memorial to your Vestry
on the subject, in which they say:—"For some time the trade has
laboured under the greatest difficulty with regard to the removal of
offal and manure, and as this difficulty is on the increase we
trust the Vestry will take some immediate steps to arrange for carts to
call at the slaughter-houses in the early part of the morning, and convey
the refuse to some proper place where it can be deposited."
This memorial was referred to your Committee, which resolved to defer the
consideration of it until after the publication of the report of the subcommittee
of the Wharves and Plant Committee, which had then lately
gone to Leeds to inspect the working of "Fryer's Destructor"—it being
the general opinion that some such apparatus might be made available
for the destruction of the offal, manure, &c., if no scheme for the utilization
of these matters without nuisance could be devised.
Having had this subject recalled to their attention, your Committee made
particular enquiries of the licensees, with the result of satisfying themselves
that the difficulty complained of is a substantial one, and one
which the individual licensees cannot surmount, except at considerable
expense, viz., by removing the offal, &c., themselves, as some of them do.
Here and there a licensee appeared to get rid of his offal without payment,
but, as a rule, payments are made ranging from three to fifteen
shillings per week. The licensees generally, still desire, and appear quite
willing to pay for, your Vestry's assistance. The carts that collect the
offal, manure, &c., appear to come round somewhat irregularly, and not
often enough for compliance with the Bye-laws; and what is worse, they
do not, as a rule, convey away the refuse in the covered receptacles, but
the contents of these are emptied into the carts. This fact may help to
explain the intolerable nuisance that arises in the passage of animal
refuse carts through the streets—a subject which is deserving the attention
of the Law and Parliamentary Committee, with a view to the
provision of a Bye-law under the Kensington Improvement Act to
regulate the removal of "offensive matters." In some instances the
blood is in like manner turned into barrels placed in carts, having been
temporarily stored in pails without "close-fitting covers thereto,"
supplied by the people who collect it, when it is not deposited with the
offal, &c., as often happens, contrary to the requirements of the 5th
Bye-law. What happens in Kensington probably happens elsewhere.
Anyhow, as regards this parish, it is hardly too much to say, perhaps, that
in the majority of the slaughter-houses breaches of the 5th Bye-law are
of frequent occurrence. This 5th Bye-law is, perhaps, the most important,
having been framed with a view to the prevention of nuisance