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187
It may be mentioned that in 1874 there were some 1500
slaughter-houses in the Metropolis; in 1891 only 666. In Kensington
48 were licensed in 1873, the year before the passing of
the Act; in 1874 only 31. The present number is 20, and no
new slaughter-house has been opened since the passing of
the Act. The defect of the Act was that it ignored the
Sanitary Authorities (Vestries and District Boards), whose
medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors should have
been made available for the purposes of inspection and supervision:
such inspection and supervision, however, have been
kept up in Kensington with obvious advantage, although
your Vestry had no statutory authority, excepting such as
was derived from power to oppose the renewal of the annual
license. It is necessary that the Council should be the
"Local Authority" for the purpose of making regulations,
so as to secure uniformity for the whole Metropolis, but I
have always contended that the Sanitary Authorities should
have concurrent power to enable them to enforce the requirements
of the regulations, and this power has practically
been conferred by the Public Health Act.
LICENSED SLAUGHTER-HOUSE.
Eleven of the 20 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. Very little slaughtering was going on. At some
of the licensed premises 110 business appeared to have been carried on
for lengthened periods: at one of them not since the licensing in October
last, the slaughter-house being used for standing trade vehicles. At a
slaughter-house in Ledbury Mews, there was a quantity of fresh offal
beyond the capacity of the receptacles provided for its reception; and
although slaughtering had only recently taken place, there was no blood
in the receptacles as required by bye-law 5: no explanation of this fact