REPORT
OF THE
SANITARY COMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMISSIONERS OF SEWERS OF THE CITY OF LONDON,

TOGETHER WITH A

REPORT

OF THE

MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH

ON

THE OBJECTIONS RAISED BY THE BUTCHERS’ TRADE SOCIETY TO THE BYE-LAWS PROPOSED FOR THE REGULATION OF

SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.

LONDON:
CHARLES SKIPPER & EAST, PRINTERS, ST. DUNSTAN’S HILL, E.C.

1876.

At a Meeting of the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, held at the Guildhall, on Tuesday, the 4th day of July, 1876,

FREDERICK COX, Esq., in the Chair.

A Report from the Sanitary Committee (William Cave Fowler, Esq., Deputy, Deputy-Chairman), dated this day, was read—

On the Reference of the 23rd of May last, to consider the Letter from the Local Government Board relative to the Slaughter-house Bye-laws agreed to on the 14th of March last, and submitted to the Local Government Board for confirmation, and on the objections of the Butchers’ Trade Society to the said Bye-laws.

Submitting a Report from the Medical Officer of Health in reply to the said objections, and recommending the Commissioners’ concurrence therein.

Resolved—

That this Court doth agree with the Committee in their said Report, and doth confirm and adopt the same.

Ordered—

That a Copy of the Medical Officer’s Report be sent to the Local Government Board in reply to their Communications therein referred to.

Ordered—

That the Report be printed, and circulated as usual.

HENRY BLAKE,
Principal Clerk.

REPORT
OF THE
SANITARY COMMITTEE.

We have, in accordance with your Reference to us of the 23rd May last, considered the letter from the Local Government Board, dated the 13th of May, relative to the new Bye-laws for the management of Slaughter-houses within the City of London, agreed to by your Honourable Court on the 14th of March last, and submitted to the Local Government Board for confirmation. Also we have carefully considered the letter of Messrs. Crouch and Spencer, with objections on behalf of the Butchers’ Trade Society, to the said Bye-laws, enclosed in the said letter from the Local Government Board for your observations.

We requested the Medical Officer of Health to give a detailed Report in regard to the objections raised by the Butchers’ Trade Society to the said Bye-laws, and we beg now to submit the same to your Honourable Court.

We have carefully considered the said Report, with the Bye-laws, and the said communications from the Local Government Board.

We have also received and considered a further communication from the Local Government Board, with copy of a letter from Messrs. Crouch and Spencer, enclosing further objections on behalf of the Butchers’ Trade Society to the said Bye-laws, also a Report from a Dr. Whitmore, and letters from certain residents of Aldgate in support of such objections.

We beg to recommend that your Honourable Court concur in the Report of the Medical Officer of Health, and that a copy thereof be forwarded to the Local Government Board in reply to their communication of the 13th ulto.

The effect of this will be, to adhere to the several proposed Bye-laws, except that as regards Bye-law No. 10, which is as follows:—

“That the internal surface of the roofs and upper portions of the walls of the Slaughter-houses and Pounds, above the 7 ft. 6 in. of impermeable surface, be washed with quicklime at least once every month.”

It is suggested that it may be so far relaxed, that the monthly limewhiting be required in the summer only, say from May to October, and that in the winter months, say from November to April, the limewhiting be required to be done once in three months.

And as regards Bye-law No. 18, which is as follows:—

“That in case of any diseased or unsound cattle being brought to a Slaughter-house, Pound, or Lair, the occupier shall forthwith give information thereof to the Medical Officer of Health of the City of London.”

It is proposed not to insist upon the retention of the word “unsound,” provided that the animals be slaughtered within a specified time of the occurrence of any accident that may disable them.

All which we submit to the judgment of your Honourable Court.

Dated this 4th day of July, 1876.

(Signed) FREDᴷ. COX.
W. C. FOWLER.
H. H. HEATH.
W. I. LOWE.

REPORT
OF THE
MEDICAL 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 9 ft. wide,—two 10 ft.,—one 10 ft. 6 in.,—two 11 ft.,—and so on. In some of them the Slaughter-house widens in the back part of the premises, but in several, viz., at Nos. 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 at No. 73, where the extreme width of the Shop and Slaughter-house was but 9 ft., 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 was industriously 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 the occupiers 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 the size of these small Slaughter-houses, as shown on the Plan made to scale by your Engineer, and forwarded to the Board some time ago [hereto]]; for I can scarcely imagine that the Board have the least idea of the diminutive space in which slaughtering on a large scale is going on night and day in 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 the structural repairs 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.