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

by W. Sedgwick Saunders; City of London . Commissioners of Sewers. Sanitary Committee

Bye-law II.

That each Slaughter-house be drained by a glazed pipe drain, not less than six inches in diameter, set in concrete and jointed in cement, or otherwise made impermeable, and communicating directly with the public sewer. That the gully at the inlet to the drain be trapped with a stoneware syphon-trap, or other trap of approved material and construction, and be covered with a grating, the bars of which shall not be more than three-eighths of an inch apart; the grating to be fastened with a lock and key, and kept at all times locked, unless opened for cleansing or repair.

Objection.

That “it is very doubtful whether setting the drain pipes in cement, whereby they cannot be got at, except by great breakage and disturbance, is at all advantageous.”

Reply.

The advantages claimed for setting the drain pipes in, and upon cement, are durability and strength; and if a pipe of six inches diameter be used, there is but little liability of its becoming choked or requiring repair for many years. Drain pipes laid on soft subsoil materials frequently break asunder from the subsidence of such a matrix, or from heavy weights falling suddenly upon them, from above, and our daily sanitary work furnishes abundant evidence of the danger to health arising from the fracture of drain pipes, where originally placed upon improper ground, and especially when under such circumstances they are subjected to violent blows.

In Edinburgh the Slaughter-houses are “laid with a thick well-dressed pavement, resting on a stratum of concrete twelve inches thick.”