POSTSCRIPT.
Since the foregoing was written I have received copies of additional documents forwarded by the “Butchers’ Trade Society” to the Local Government Board, and, in accordance with your request, have perused and considered the same.
These communications begin with a long letter from the above named Society, consisting of extracts from my Report on Slaughter-houses, dated 1st June,1875, with observations upon the same, given point by point in parallel columns.
These remarks are really little more than a “réchauffé” of those already set forth in the voluminous epistle of the Society, dated 10th April, 1876, addressed to the Local Government Board, and I fail to recognise any more important differences than the following, viz., some very ungracious and totally irrelevant reflections upon the conduct of the District Sanitary Inspectors, for the forbearance shown by those officers in allowing the greatest latitude as to the defects and nuisances observed in the butchers’ premises to continue with as little interference as possible until the newrégimecould be established; also a statement that your Engineer is at variance with myself in the recommendations given to your Committee, the truth being that they were prepared by that officer in conjunction with your Solicitor and myself. Further, the Society inform the Local Government Board, that disease germs have never been known to rise to a height of six feet, and that therefore the side walls separating adjoining Slaughter-houses need not bebuilt as high as the Bye-laws require! This is a fair sample of the recklessness with which the “Butchers’ Trade Society’s” last production has been framed, and pays a poor compliment to the discrimination of the Local Government Board, who may, if they think fit, educate the Society to the fact that disease germs have been known to travel many thousands of miles, carrying with them cholera and kindred diseases from the far East to the distant West;—a corresponding degree of ignorance characterises the dicta of the butchers upon the physical laws which govern the movements of currents of air, and which for convenience is called ventilation. Again, the Society claim an exceptional state of salubrity and freedom from disease for butchers as a class—a proposition which I have already shown you is untenable. Further information may be obtained upon this subject from a Report written byDr.Buchanan, one of the Medical Inspectors of the Local Government Board, upon the connection between scarlet fever and cow sheds, in a district under his charge. Lastly, the Society ask, whether in my judgment the butchers would be less unhealthy in the Slaughter-houses as arrangedaccording to my plan, and I answer broadly and unhesitatingly, Yes.
The remaining letters comprise one from the Reverend the Vicar of St. Botolph, whose testimony as to the general condition of the Slaughter-houses is opposed to the evidence of your own senses when visiting the places, and is otherwise grossly inaccurate; also letters from two resident medical practitioners certifying as to the healthiness of the neighbourhood of Aldgate in general, and the Slaughter-houses in particular—also a detailed Report from a Metropolitan Medical Officer of Health, who has so implicitly adopted every “objection” made by the butchers to your Bye-laws, that I am irresistibly forced to the conclusion that he is either the author of such “objections,” or has lent a too credent ear to the gentleman he mentions as having accompanied him in his survey, and “who gave him much valuable information, statistical and otherwise.” Upon fairly balancing the whole matter, I cannot see any reason to modify the opinions expressed in my Report of 27th June last, and in apportioning the value to be awarded to the conflicting testimony offered toyou, I must ask you to remember that the strenuous efforts in the way of resistance made by the butchers, and my own justification of the principles of right and propriety, which have alone dictated my advice, rest upon totally distinct bases.
W. S. S.
Guildhall,14th July, 1876.
CHARLES SKIPPER AND EAST, PRINTERS, ST. DUNSTAN’S HILL, E.C.