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Meat Inspection.
1. Meat Inspection.—This is still kept at a very high pitch of efficiency. The Chief Sanitary
Inspector and the District Sanitary Inspectors hold special certificates for the meat inspection.
Slaughter-houses and butchers' shops are visited periodically.
There are 7 slaughter-houses (4 registered and 3 licenced), in use in the district, and eich
slaughter-house received on an average 12.48 visits per month. There were 61- batchers' shops in
the district at the end of 1933.
2. Public Abattoir.—There is no public abattoir in the district. Slaughtering may take
place at any time, subject to the requisite notice being given. From time to time suggestions have
been brought forward as to the possibility of establishing an abattoir. I have on every occasion
advised against it, on the grounds that I do not think that at the present time the expense is justified,
owing to the fact that by far the greater part of the meat coming into the district is bought at Smithfield
and inspected there. There does not seem to be with the growth of the district any great demand
or further facilities for slaughtering at present.
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3. Action under Section 117, Public Health Act, 1875 :—No unsound meat was seized during
the year.
4. Diseased Meat.—There was none seized, but a total of 2,891 lbs. were surrendered during
the year, including 1,527 lbs. of tubercular meat.
The slaughter-houses on the whole are kept, so far as their construction will allow, in a fairly
satisfactory condition. The butchers still continue to buy mainly in the London wholesale meat
markets.
The Public Health (Meat) Regulations, 1924, continue to cause a considerable amount of
work, and the amount slaughtered has become to a large extent stabilised. The slaughtering is often
continued well into the evening to suit the personal convenience of the butchers.
Most of the butchers continue to accept the restrictions imposed by the Regulations in the
right spirit, but in 16 instances no notice or insufficient notice of slaughtering was given, a number
of which could be avoided with a little forethought. There has been established a feeling of confidence
in the decisions given and this is shown by the fact that the whole of the unsound and diseased
meat dealt with during slaughtering was surrendered.
When new butchers' shops are opened every effort is made to obtain fixed windows, but with
the absence of positive power to demand fixed windows, there is a tendency on the part of some of
the butchers to adopt a standstill attitude with regard to this most desirable method of preventing
contamination of the meat exposed for sale.
The provision of fixed glazed windows to many of the shops in the district has proved beneficial
both from the point of view of preventing contamination and maintaining longer the saleable
qualities of the meat. Having regard to this improvement in certain instances, the reason for the
absence of a positive policy on the matter in the Regulations is rather obscure and I venture to suggest
in fairness to those butchers who have provided fixed windows on request, that provisions should be
made, in the near future, for enforcing compulsorily, that all meat shall only be exposed and sold
behind fixed glazed windows without any qualifications.
Out of a total of 64 butchers' shops in the district, 45 are provided with fixed windows, of which
number 6 were new shops in 1933 ; 3 other shops are provided with one fixed window and one window
made to open, one of which was a new shop in 1933 ; 2 have one fixed window and two windows made
to open, and the remainder have windows made to open.
INSPECTION OF OTHER FOODS.
Section 72 of the Public Health Act, 1925, provides, in some measure, for the prevention of
contamination of food stuffs (other than meat) when stored or kept on enclosed premises ; but there
appear to be no provisions made for dealing with the contamination of foodstuffs deposited for sale
in an open manner, on forecourts to shops and on stalls and barrows standing or moving about the
roadways of a district.
The reason for limiting the scope of application of this section to rooms which are not or will
not be controlled by the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, and any amending Acts is difficult to
understand. As powers were already provided under the food clauses of the Public Health Act,
for dealing with any foodstuffs which are diseased or unsound or unwholesome or unfit for the food
of man and are exposed, deposited or in course of preparation for sale in any such rooms controlled
by the Act, to restrict the powers of preventing contamination, which may ultimately result in unfitness,
seems to be somewhat opposed to the guiding principles underlying the duties of public health
officers, that it is better to prevent than cure.
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