Read Ebook: 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-h by Saunders W Sedgwick William Sedgwick City Of London England Commissioners Of Sewers Sanitary Committee

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REPLY TO "OBJECTIONS" OF THE "BUTCHERS' TRADE SOCIETY" TO THE BYE-LAWS.

That each Slaughter-house be paved with asphalte, laid with proper slopes and channels towards a trapped gully, and, where practicable, such gully shall be outside the Slaughter-house and Pound.

OBJECTIONS.

REPLY.

The joints in stone pavements, however well laid, cannot be made durable, owing to the frequent concussions produced by the animals falling heavily and suddenly when pole-axed, and the joints being once cracked or broken readily admit through their interstices every kind of liquid filth, which accumulates in the subsoil and decomposes there.

The flooring of the present Slaughter-houses in Aldgate is composed of small, and badly laid, flag-stones, &c., which are loose, broken, and uneven in many places, and which cannot be properly cleansed on account of the inequalities of the surfaces.

The retention of this Bye-law will, of course, prevent the replacement of the old flag-stones upon the reconstruction of the Slaughter-houses, and involve the owners in some expense.

A smooth jointless pavement for Slaughter-houses was unanimously considered the best at a meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in a discussion which followed the reading of a paper by Mr. Darbyshire, on Public Abattoirs, 1st February, 1875.

The scavengers should attend to the movable boxes at regular intervals, and cart away all solid matter.

In the Edinburgh Abattoirs there are "two distinct sets of drains, one for the surface water, which is conveyed directly into Lochrin burn, the other for the soil, which is conveyed into large tanks, prepared for its reception, and sold for agricultural purposes."

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of excluding blood, offal or dung, &c., from the sewers at all times, but especially in seasons of epidemic zymotic diseases, and it would be an inestimable boon, and one by no means difficult of accomplishment, if the Scotch system could be imitated at Aldgate.

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.

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."

OBJECTION.

REPLY.

The necessity for this alteration will be dealt with under remarks upon Bye-law No. 6.

That each Slaughter-house be separated from any adjoining Slaughter-house in a different occupation by a brick wall, of at least nine inches in thickness, extending from the ground to the roof, so as effectually to shut off all atmospheric communication between it and the adjacent Slaughter-house.

OBJECTIONS.

REPLY.

I may, however, premise by stating that the present divisional walls between the several Slaughter-houses are composed of wet, partially rotten, and rugged, brickwork below, and rough, imperfect, and defective, wooden partitions above, the whole of which are supersaturated with organic animal matters, grease, and dirt.

It is quite clear, therefore, that you are acting strictly within your legal rights in calling upon the Butchers to put their houses in order.

Your visit to Aldgate must have convinced you that the premises of these Slaughter-houses generally are too small for the enormous amount of business done in them, and as, owing to the natural increment of the population, this evil must ever be augmenting, it becomes a serious question to determine whether a strong remonstrance should not be addressed by the Commissioners of Sewers to Her Majesty's Government, or failing this to Parliament, against the continuance of the smaller of these places, or by insisting that slaughtering should only be carried on in houses of such dimensions as would ensure perfect ventilation, and provide the means of carrying on the process with efficiency. In order to perfect your powers, and establish a wholesome check upon the slaughterers, a short Act might be obtained, giving the Commissioners of Sewers authority to issue fresh licences, without which no Slaughter-houses should be allowed to exist. The present licences were issued in 1848, and have not been revised since that time, whereas outside the City they are renewed yearly.

I entertain a strong objection to the partitions in any part of the Slaughter-house, Pound, or Lair, being constructed of wood, for the reason that this material becomes rapidly sodden by the constant presence of hot moist air, in which state it must inevitably absorb noxious and other vapours, and soon become saturated with albuminoid organic matter, and afford a ready nidus for the development and propagation of any disease germs which may be floating in the air.

The Butchers deny the existence of unpleasant odours in Slaughter-houses; but whilst freely admitting this to be a matter in which the senses of ordinary men may be differently affected to those of persons constantly living in and enjoying an atmosphere, however nauseous, I must insist that the air within a Slaughter-house can never be wholesome so long as the disgusting practice of opening the paunches of hot, reeking animals, directly after they are knocked down, is allowed to continue.

From the nature of the food eaten by ruminants, and during its disintegration and assimilation, enormous quantities of stinking volatile gases are formed, and the sudden disengaging of these when the intestines are ripped up and emptied, before being handed over to the tripe-dresser, must always fill the surrounding air with what common mortals would consider vile and poisonous smells.

You may remember I urged you to make a Bye-law prohibiting this custom, and I regret the more it was overruled in Committee, since the only excuse offered for its continuance was the very inadequate plea that the guts of a large animal were too heavy and bulky to be removed without being first deprived of their contents.

Mr. Simon, C.B., F.R.S., &c., &c., my talented predecessor, insisted in the Blue Book before referred to, that "an atmosphere which smells of organic decomposition, is an unwholesome atmosphere; that it at least favours the spread, perhaps also what may virtually be considered the production, of morbid infections."

Without reiterating the reasons which have led me to insist upon this isolation of each Slaughter-house, I will only advert to the very evident facility given for one Slaughter-house to infect its neighbour should these side openings be allowed to continue, an objection which would apply with fatal force should cattle suffering from contagious disease be imported by carelessness or design into any one of them.

It being a well-ascertained fact that myriads of germs or disease-spreading organisms may be given off in the cutaneous exhalations, the excreta, and, possibly, the very breath of infected animals, it is no exaggeration to affirm that one such beast might decimate its neighbourhood, affecting alike the living cattle in the Pounds and Lairs waiting for slaughter, and the dead meat hanging up to cool in the Slaughter-house before it was carried away by the retail butchers. In the latter case, the well-known power of warm fat in rapidly absorbing all kinds of odours, good and bad, would render every precaution to prevent the contamination of the meat already killed inoperative.

Interested persons have asserted that no injury to health has been proved to result from the existence of Slaughter-houses, even in densely populated and confined situations, but my own experience, and that of every practical physician, leads to an opposite opinion; in support of which I may recall the circumstance of my having recently reported to you an outbreak of scarlet fever in the vicinity of the Slaughter-houses in Aldgate, and again as lately as 14th March last a case of typhoid fever in Somerset Street, at the back of the Slaughter-houses, in a house in immediate connexion with the drains of the Slaughter-houses and the "blood house" adjoining. Moreover, it is a truism, established by recent researches in vital statistics, that slaughterers and butchers should be regarded as an unhealthy class of men, since they present a much higher rate of mortality than is observed in other trades.

Respecting the separation of the Pounds from the Slaughter-houses, I still retain a strong conviction that such is both necessary and expedient, although I am not insensible of the difficulty of carrying it out in some few of the Slaughter-houses, whose cramped dimensions render this and other requisite accommodation well nigh impracticable. In these cases the owners should be compensated, and the places closed.

Before a clear idea can be entertained of the possible and impossible improvements in these Slaughter-houses, I strongly recommend that a ground plan be prepared of the whole block in High Street, showing to scale the exact size of each Shop, Lair, Slaughter-house, and out-building, with so much of the surrounding property as will provide a back way into the Slaughter-houses upon a give-and-take line as between immediate neighbours; should the owners find it their interest to combine for such purpose.

That the inner surface of the walls of every Slaughter-house be covered with slate, stone, or other hard, smooth, impervious material, to the height of 7 feet 6 inches, and that above this height to the roof the walls be cemented.

OBJECTION.

REPLY.

The height of the "dado" was increased from 4 feet 6 inches to 7 feet 6 inches, in consequence of my having inspected a Slaughter-house outside the City, and finding 4 feet 6 inches insufficient to protect the walls above from the splashing of blood and filth, the "dado" itself being clean.

That each Slaughter-house be provided with adequate lairage or poundage, separated from the slaughtering space by a closed partition, extending from the floor to the roof, formed of brick, stone, slate, or other similar material, having a smooth impervious surface, to a height of at least 7 feet 6 inches from the floor. That in all cases where from the present plan of the premises a door is needed between the Lair or Pound and the slaughtering space, such door be provided with spring hinges, and be kept closed when not open for the passage of cattle, but that where other means exist of taking cattle from the Lair or Pound into the Slaughter-house, without passing through shops, or over important public ways, no door shall exist between the Lair or Pound and the Slaughter-house.

OBJECTIONS.

REPLY.

The chief considerations in support of this Bye-law are given in the extract of my Report on 1st June, 1875, above quoted. I may, however, say, in addition, that the possibility of the animals waiting for slaughter seeing the process of killing other animals, formed no part of the argument.

Again, the Butchers' objection on the score of ventilation is based upon the supposition that the Pound must necessarily be of the same height as the Slaughter-house, which does not follow, as the accompanying Diagram will show:--

The spring hinges ordered in this Bye-law will ensure the door between the Slaughter-house and Pound being kept closed, but the Butchers may, if they prefer it, hang the doors by balance weights, so as to slide up and down like an ordinary sash window, by which means the direful consequences predicted as likely to result from the use of spring hinges may be avoided.

That where any Slaughter-house or Pound cannot be sufficiently ventilated by openings on to the public ways, or on to other open places, it shall be ventilated from the roof, which shall be so constructed as to admit freely of the escape of air, and that rings for burning gas be fixed in the roof so as to increase the upward current when a-light, and that both Slaughter-house and Pound be properly lighted either from the public ways or other open spaces, and where that be not practicable, then from the roof.

OBJECTIONS.

REPLY.

The question raised here is as to the proper mode of ventilation and lighting, and seeing that it would be worse than folly to perpetuate the evil of allowing an intercommunication between the side walls of some of the present ill-devised, and worse-kept, Slaughter-houses in Aldgate High Street, your Committee were driven to the alternative of requiring both light and ventilation to be sought for in the roof.

The ring of gas spoken of so contemptuously by the Butchers will have the effect of rarefying the vitiated air in the Slaughter-houses during the process of slaughtering, and by producing an up-current, quicken the ventilation.

Upon this point Mr. Darbyshire, before quoted, says, speaking of his work at Manchester, "the Slaughter-houses are well lighted from the roofs, top lights being superior to side lights for purposes of slaughtering." All the Markets recently constructed by the Corporation of London are similarly lighted and ventilated, and at the Abattoir in Edinburgh the whole of the ventilation is carried on by large ventilators, and other contrivances, in the roof.

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