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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 for further facilities for slaughtering at present.
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 3,294 lbs. were surrendered
during the year, including 2,360 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 7 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 67 butchers' shops in the district, 46 are provided with fixed windows, of
which number 6 were new shops in 1934; 3 other shops are provided with one fixed window and
one window made to open; 2 have one fixed window and two windows made to open, and the
remainder have windows made to open.
INSPECTION OF OTHER FOODS.
Efforts are being made to get the large Stores to cover such food products as are sold on the
counter. The public are very curious in their outlook in these things and in one of the largest
Stores in the district when discussing the matter with the Manager, and in particular relation to
biscuits which were exposed in open compartments on the counter, he said that there were only two
kinds of biscuits which his public would buy in packets, one of which was a cream cracker, but I
am advised he is experimenting with celophane as a wrapper, and in other directions. I am hoping
that in the near future some method will be evolved specially to cover all foodstuffs for sale.