REPORTOF THEMEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
To the Sanitary Committee of the Honourable the Commissioners of Sewers.
Gentlemen,
In compliance with your request that I should “give a detailed Report in regard to the objections raised by the ‘Butchers’ Trade Society’ to the proposed ‘Bye-laws’” for the better conduct and regulation of Slaughter-houses within the City of London, agreed to by the Honourable the Court of Sewers, and submitted by them to the Local Government Board for confirmation, and which “objections” were contained in a letter forwarded to the said Board by the said Society, a copy of which was sent to your Committee by the said Board for your consideration and observations thereon, I beg to offer the following remarks:
There are 27 Slaughter-houses in the City of London, viz.: 24 in Aldgate,[1]1 in Bishopsgate, 1 in Farringdon, and 1 in Cripplegate Ward: of these the following observations apply exclusively to Aldgate, no “objections” to the Bye-laws having been expressed by the occupiers of the remaining three.
The Bye-laws referred to were framed with a full knowledge of the intended, and indeed threatened, opposition on the part of the slaughterers and butchers of Aldgate, and every “objection” mentioned in their letter to the Local Government Board was fully and dispassionately discussed by your Committee during many lengthy sittings, at each of which they invited, and were favoured by, the presence of the Deputy of the Ward in which the Slaughter-houses are situated.
This gentleman ably and forcibly supported the views propounded by the butchers, and evinced the keenest anxiety to protect their interests.
Subsequently your recommendations respecting these Bye-laws were adopted with surprising unanimity by the Honourable the Court of Sewers without amendment or alteration; a number of Commissioners then being present who are immediately interested in the butchering business, and practically acquainted with its wants, concurring in their acceptance.
The initial difficulty in dealing with this question arises from the anomalous conditions as to size, number, and areas, to be found in the Slaughter-houses and adjoining premises at Aldgate.
The twenty-four Slaughter-houses in Aldgate are, with one or two exceptions, situated side by side; all have a direct communication with a shop facing High Street, Whitechapel, and six of them have no other means for the entrance of cattle than by their being driven across the footways and through the shop; a practice which renders the pavement at times impassable, and causes terror and annoyance to the public. These shops are for the most part low in ceiling height, and very narrow in frontage,one being but 9ft.wide,—two 10ft.,—one 10ft.6in.,—two 11ft.,—and soon. In some of them the Slaughter-house widens in the back part of the premises, but in several, viz., atNos.55, 58, 59, 60, 68, and 73, the whole business of a retail butcher and slaughterer is conducted in the narrow strips above quoted.
Your Committee having viewed these places, will recollect that atNo.73, where the extreme width of the Shop and Slaughter-house was but 9ft., there was no room to pass up and down the Slaughter-house when the carcasses of the slaughtered animals were hanging, excepting by moving sideways, and that the atmosphere of the place was pervaded by a hot, moist, sickening vapour, for want of thorough ventilation; you must also have remarked upon the general state of disrepair of the whole of these Slaughter-houses, the dilapidated roofs, the blood-stained and filthy state of the side walls, the uneven and broken condition of the flooring, the imperfect, totally inadequate, and badly placed water supply, the large accumulations of dung, offal, and blood, and the defective and sluggish drainage, down the gratings of which you could not fail to have seen a plentiful flow of crude liquid manure, which the man in charge wasindustriously sweeping into the sewers, to their great pollution; all these indicate a state of neglect which could only have arisen from a consciousness on the part of the owners and occupiers that the Legislature intended to abolish such places as private Slaughter-houses upon the expiration of the Act of 1844, 7th and 8th Vict., c. 84. Unfortunately, however, the so-called vested interests of the butchers proved too strong with the Government for the protection of the public, and Parliament in 1874, by the 37th and 38th Vict., c. 67, was induced to perpetuate these Slaughter-houses in the City of London, under such regulations it is your province to make and maintain.
In order to be consistent, and to enable the Court of Sewers to exercise a proper amount of control, each Slaughter-house must be treated as a separate and independent building; and, in advising you as to the best mode of securing such control, it has ever been a source of deep anxiety and considerable embarrassment to me, how best to reconcile the wants of modern sanitation, decency, and order, with the inevitable sacrifices on the part of theoccupiers of the smallest of these places, which I foresee and confess to be demanded by the institution of thorough disciplinary measures.
The necessity for treating each Slaughter-house as a distinct structure “per se,” and the apparent consciousness of the inability of the holders of the smaller ones to adapt themselves to efficient regulations, is, I believe, the main cause of the opposition now made to the Bye-laws, for I have reason to know that the occupiers of the larger Slaughter-houses are ready to conform to the spirit of the Bye-laws, albeit they are not in accord with us as to some of the provisions therein.
Under the peculiar and exceptional circumstances of the case before us, the question of dimensions so completely underlies the whole contention, that I earnestly hope your Committee will call the particular attention of the Local Government Board to thesizeof these small Slaughter-houses, as shown on the Plan made to scale by your Engineer, and forwarded to the Board some time ago [a copy of which, upon a reduced scale, is appendedhereto]; for I can scarcely imagine that the Board havethe least idea of the diminutive space in which slaughteringon a large scale is going on night and dayin defiance of the principles of health or humanity.
The Board should also be informed that the slaughtering effected in these places extends far beyond the requirements of the neighbourhood, and that the plea of the Butchers that they provide marketable commodities suitable to the necessities of the poor of their locality is essentially unsound, from an economical point of view, it having been found in places where Abattoirs obtain, that the poor readily follow any market which offers them pecuniary advantages.
I now proceed to notice the various “objections” advanced in the letter of the “Butchers’ Trade Society”:—They relate, for the most part, to thestructuralrepairs rendered necessary by the present ruinous condition of the Aldgate Slaughter-houses generally, which, in spite of admitted neglect, due to their owners having expected their demolition in 1874, when the Act of 1834 affecting Slaughter-houses expired, are now resisted upon the score of expense.
FOOTNOTES:[1]These Slaughter-houses are really in Portsoken Ward, but they are always quoted as of Aldgate Ward, and will be so described in this Report to avoid confusion.
[1]These Slaughter-houses are really in Portsoken Ward, but they are always quoted as of Aldgate Ward, and will be so described in this Report to avoid confusion.