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tallow melting offensive, which it need not be if done properly.
I say little about the improper layerage of cattle standing
in their dung, and the meat, how it must be damaged by being
exposed to this organic effluvia and that of their respiration.
Here also I must not forget the cruel and degrading practice
of killing the animals in each others presence, which is revolting,
and cannot be sanctioned. What also mean the extravasations
of blood observed frequently on parts of the carcase, but
the blows and violence used in getting them into their place,
or tumbling them down area steps? Who does not object to
the dangers of driving cattle through the crowded streets, their
loud bellowing, and the heavy blows of the drovers, conducted
mostly now at night to escape observation?
3. As to construction.—None of the private slaughterhouses
have been erected with a view to efficiency. It
is nonsense saying, as one witness talked about before
the Noxious Trades Committee, that capital had been expended
upon the erection of these places. They are, as before
stated, old premises converted into makeshifts. The pens for
the cattle are close, ill-ventilated, dark, without water supply;
the drainage is generally good, but the opening into the main
sewer too often untrapped. No proper catchpit, no covered
receptacle for dung, or barrels for blood, fat, and offal; floors
instead of being sloped, or of impermeable asphalte, or well
paved, are generally leaky at the joints from the cement giving
way to frequent slushing.
If I am permitted to enlarge upon the objectionable practice
of private slaughtering in towns, the strongest reason I would
urge against it, and in favour of a scheme of slaughter-house
reform, is the absence of that guarantee or security for a
proper quality of meat which the public ought to demand.
The amount of meat sold in markets, and at third-rate shops,
and made into sausages of a very inferior nutritive value, is
something enormous, and that which is absolutely diseased and
condemned is an almost fabulous quantity. This I might
readily place before you in figures; the amount made known
weekly in the press cannot be but a small part of what finds
its way into the market. There is too much of lean meat
generally used as food. Some cattle are mere scarecrows,
to say nothing of being unhealthy when killed to save their Lives,
or prevent death, from starvation. Efficient inspection of the
slaughter-houses would greatly improve the trade in the 3000
butchers' shops of the metropolis, and as I am ready to prove
without detriment to the poor, as has been alleged so strongly