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ON THE ABOLITION OF
PRIVATE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES IN TOWNS,
AND ON
FUTURE LEGISLATION FOR NOXIOUS TRADES,
The present time is one peculiarly propitious for inviting discussion
upon slanghter-house reform in the metropolis, and for
urging upon Parliament the consideration of legislative measures
affecting the slaughtering of cattle, as well as of several other noxious
trades in close relation to the same. It is one of those departments
of public health legislation in which the interests of many
private persons are, more or less, affected on the one hand, and
the health of people congregated in cities on the other.
It would be a waste of time to enter minutely into all the
legislative Acts bearing upon the regulation of offensive or
noxious trades, for I may assume that most persons
who are here present and disposed to take part in the discussion
this evening are already informed upon the subject.
The Metropolis Building Act of 1844, as far as the metropolis
is concerned, has been very generally understood by the
metropolitan vestries and the butchers themselves, to virtually
abolish a greater part of the private slaughter-houses of the
metropolis after the 9th of August this year, that is, thirty
years after the passing of the Act. Although there may be
some legal quibble as to the interpretation of clause 55, it
enacts it will become illegal to erect or carry on any of the
offensive or obnoxious trades specified in the Act in premises
that are not beyond fifty feet of any first-class dwellinghouse
or forty feet from any open way.
The following is the clause:—
"LV.—For the purpose of making provision concerning businesses, offensive
or noxious, be it enacted, with regard to the following businesses,
that is to say, blood-boiler, bone-boiler, fellmonger, slaughterer of cattle,
sheep, or horses, soap-boiler, tallow-melter, tripe-boiler, and any other like
business offensive or noxious, so far as relates to the erection of buildings