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.