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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purposes of inspection and supervision. Such inspection and
supervision, however, has been kept up in Kensington with obvious
advantage, although your Vestry have no statutory authority,
excepting such as is derived from power to oppose the renewal of
the annual license. It is necessary that the Council should be
Local Authority for the purpose of making regulations, so as to
secure uniformity for the whole Metropolis, but the Sanitary
Authorities should have concurrent powers to enable them to
enforce the requirements of the regulations.
LICENSED SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.
Twelve of the 21 licensed slaughter-houses are in North
Kensington (i.e., the district north of Uxbridge Road) and nine in
South Kensington (i.e., the remainder of the Parish south of
Uxbridge Road). The names of the licensees, and the localities of
the premises, are set out in Table XI. (Appendix). The several
premises were inspected, in July, by the Works and Sanitary
Committee, who reported on them as follows:—
" All of the premises were found in a satisfactory condition as to
general cleanliness, but in more than one or two of them there were
offensive collections of offal, &c.,in the receptacles. The licensees stated
that such offal was the product of slaughtering within the previous 24
hours. Be this as it may, it is the duty of the licensee to cause offal,
&c., to be removed from the premises before it has become offensive.
In two or three instances, at premises where no slaughtering had been
done for some time, offensive smell was traced to collections of fatscraps,
&c., in bags, removed from the shop, and intended for the fatmelter.
The bags themselves necessarily become stinking, and it would
be well if such fat were stored in impermeable and covered metal
vessels pending removal. Enquiries made by your Committee led them
to conclude that, as a rule, no definite arrangements are made to secure
the daily removal of offal, &e., the licensees often depending on the
chance call of manure collectors, into whose carts the receptacles are
emptied. It is certainly the rule that receptacles are emptied on the
premises, and not taken away with their contents, as they needs must be
if nuisance is to be avoided. Such an arrangement would involve the
keeping of duplicate sets of receptacles, for which, practically, provision
is made in an amended code of bye-laws which the County
Council framed, and forwarded to the Local Government Board, as
Confirming Authority, so far back as July, 1889, but which has not yet