Our slaughter-house system : a plea for reform / [C. Cash].

  • Cash, C.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Our slaughter-house system : a plea for reform / [C. Cash]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/230 (page 3)
    private slaughter-house,* situated, as a rule, at the rear of his shop, in which he kills his cattle and prepares the meat for sale. With the public slaughter-house or abattoir system, on the other hand, all slaughtering is done in one or more public slaughter-houses, owned, as a rule, by the municipality, and for the use of which the butcher pays certain dues. At first sight it might appear that there is nothing very objectionable in the former of these systems. It is a most convenient arrangement for the butcher to have his slaughter-house close to his shop, and it would appear natural that a man should carry on his private business on private premises. Much depends, however, upon what that business is. The business of slaughtering is such that there are grave objections to carrying it on in the immediate neighbourhood of the butcher’s shop. These shops are situated, naturally, in the most densely populated parts of our towns, where the butcher is likely to find the readiest sale for his meat, and the slaughter- house is packed away among crowded buildings where its presence is a nuisance and a danger—a nuisance on account of the offensive nature of the work, and a danger on account of the polluting effect of the blood and offal which result from slaughtering operations. Moreover, these private slaughter-houses, which, in view of the nature of the work performed in them, should be models of sanitation, are often quite the reverse. Any sort of structure is often thought to be good enough for a private slaughter-house, and in many cases these buildings are such that the production of the animal food of the public in them ought to be absolutely prohibited. A statement of this kind, however, requires * A slaughter-house is jointly by several men. often let to other butchers or used con- 1—2