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11
The Slaughter Houses and Cowsheds have been duly inspected
throughout the year, and no cause for complaint of
importance has been found to exist.
Under the 55th Section of the Metropolitan Building Act,
passed some thirty years ago, and before the Licensing System
was adopted, all the private slaughter-houses of our District will,
unless it be repealed, be done away with in 1874.
No doubt when this Act was framed, the London Slaughter
Houses were many of them in an unwholesome and even disgusting
state, but the more recent Licensing and Sanitary supervision has
to a great extent remedied that evil; and I cannot but look upon
it as a great injustice to the trade, after the improvements which
have been effected in them lately, to close them under the unrepealed
power of a Statute passed so many years ago, and by this
special clause which had virtually by more recent legislative
enactments been considered obsolete.
Beyond this question of the trade itself, however, lies one of
greater importance to your constituents. How, in the event of
the threatened closing in 1874 of private slaughter-houses in this
District, are they to be supplied with animal food? Neither the
Government nor has any other authority made provision by
public abattoirs to supply their place, and even if they had, their
advantage over private slaughtering places has been and may
well be seriously questioned. I have myself given evidence
before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on this
point, and I have no hesitation in repeating my opinion, that
the peremptory abolition of well conducted private SlaughterHouses
in the suburban Districts of London would be a public
calamity, and one which would tend not only to deprive the poor
of a great facility for obtaining animal food, but enormously to
increase the price of it to every portion of society.
This question must engage the special attention of Parliament
in the coming session.
I am of opinion that in the crowded parts of this Metropolis
the time has arrived when public abattoirs are more desirable,
and even necessary, but in the outlying Districts they cannot afford
an adequate provision for the wants of the people, and I trust
your Board will adopt this view. It may prove desirable that
your Board Petition Parliament on the question.
I am desirous of again drawing your attention to the present
imperfect system of Vaccination, and to the remarks I made in
my last Annual Report on the unprotective quality of the
Vaccine Lymph now being used.
The total mortality of the Fulham District in 1872 was 1389,
thus shewing an excess of births (2477) over deaths of 1088.