Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Tuberculosis
- Date:
- 1898
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
130/502 (page 90)
![Mr. interesting to this Commission, you could see what W. Cooper, great bulk of it was for; it might have been for some large cargo of foreign meat that had gone wrong in !1 Jan. 1897. tne transit, which we have had a very great deal of lately. There was one vessel I think arrived in the London Docks during the middle of last summer and there was an enormous number of thousands of sheep all seized; there was not one of them fit for human food. They had either gone wrong on the voyage, or they had gone wrong after they had arrived at the docks. That would, of course, very much add to the weight of meat seized, for another thing, during the very hot weather in the summer, sometimes there are very large quantities of meat which become putrid during transit to London; also meat may become putrid even in connexion with the trade, while it is being carried for instance from Deptford to London. It might be possible that those figures might include that. 1976. Dr. Sedgwick Saunders gave us that instance that you speak of, namely, that of 40,000 sheep from New Zealand. Then your point is, as I understand it, that exposure for sale is rather a technical term than a reality ?—Yes, quite so. 1977. Then supposing a salesman finds that he has a large amount of meat which is unfit for human food, has he any way of getting rid of it before an inspector comes round ?—Certainly not. 1978. Then he must wait until the inspector comes round ?—I do not think there is any must about it, but he does do so. Of course a dishonest man might find ways and means of getting rid of it. 1979. Has he any means of getting it destroyed apart from the inspector ?—None whatever. 1980. So that in that case, he must wait for the inspector r—Decidedly so; not only that, but if it is very hot weather, and there is a very large quantity waiting to be taken away, he must await the time that the inspector can eventually remove it. 1981. You do not, as I understand, advocate public abattoirs ?—I do not. 1982. One of your statements was that the only advantage that you saw in them was the ease of inspection ?—That is all. 1983. There was a large deputation of butchers to Mr. Chaplin some time ago ?—I was with them. 1984. And one of their principal contentions was that they demanded uniformity of inspection ?— Agreed. 1985. Do you not think that one of the immense advantages of public abattoirs would be that uni- formity ?—No, I do not. 1986. Why not ?—Because J do not see that there would be any uniformity then. What certainty should I have that an inspector at Liverpool would act upon the same principles as an inspector at London. That would not produce uniformity. What I suggest here would produce uniformity, namely, a jury of experts appointed by some municipal body that would be a court of appeal in the event of any difference of opinion. That would make uniformity of inspection. 1987. Do you think that the several juries in the several boroughs in England would all go upon precisely the same lines ?—I think so, because they would generally be people who had a technical knowledge of meat in carcase. You see the great difficulty at this present moment. Take, for instance, any place you like, Lambeth, or any parish in London, there is an inspector there, he may gee something in a butcher's shop which he regards as unfit for human food. He brings it before the medical officer. Medical officers, as a rule, have very little experience indeed in carcases; their scientific know- ledge would give them a knowledge of the entrails of animals, but it would give tbem very little know- ledge indeed of that sort which would make them experts of meat in carcase, so you see the medical officer acts almost entirely upon the evidence of his inspector, and when they go before the magistrate, the magistrate does not pretend to any knowledge. He simply accepts the evidence which is before him and he condemns according to the evidence. Then j difficulty arises immediately, the evidence is gone th< next day; if it is hot weather, that meat has become putrid, and the evidence has all gone, and there an only the statements of the two men ; you cannot get anj other evidence because the article itself has gone bad and it is impossible to bring it into evidence. Th< jury of experts would end all that. 1988. You are giving us an instance now of the inspection of private slaughter-houses, are you not ?— No. 1989. Not in Lambeth ?—That did not refer t( private slaughter-houses, but to butchers' shops. ] said a man might seize anything, no matter where ii might be, in a slaughter-house or a private shop. 1990. It would not be in a public abattoir?—No. 1991. On the other hand, you have told us thai in the London public abattoirs there is nothing tc complain of, that the inspection is uniform and sound i —I have no doubt it is so. Why ? In London acting under the Corporation, no inspector is appointee unless he has a thorough practical knowledge oi butchering. I think you will find in the list whicl you, no doubt, are supplied with, the occupations of the inspectors; it is in the Return which was obtained by Mr. Field, that London is nearly the only place, and when I say London, I am talking about the City of London, because they are th< market authority, where it is one of the conditions under which these men are appointed that thej should have a practical knowledge of butchering. 1992. And is that not just one of the greal advantages of a public abattoir as opposed to the inspection of private butchers' shops ?—There need be no advantage in a public abattoir in the matter oi inspection. The public bodies have the entree to every slaughter-house that there is in London, and ii they do not choose to elo their duty thereby, that is no reason at all why the poor should have this very valuable product destroyed. I think there would be a slight improvement, perhaps, with regard to the matter of inspection, but I think the loss would be greater than the gain. 1993. (Mr. Murphy.) 1 would like to ask you why you say the offal would be lost if slaughtered in any public slaughter-house. Are you speaking from your own knowledge, or are you speaking from an impression that you have got from other people ?— I am not a butcher, I told you that, and therefore, of course, my own knowledge is not derived entirely from my own observation. But I will say this regarding it: I see, and I have for sale on my premises, some- times the offal of sheep, the heads and plucks may be sent; for instance, I may have a farmer in Scotland slaughter a large quantity of sheep and consign them to me. He may also consign the heads and plucks tc me. Now these heads and plucks deteriorate enormously in value in coming to London, and if they were killed in a private slaughter-house, they would be worth a gooel deal more money. That is a very valuable product ; in London especially is that the case. 1994. Do you know the number of animals that are killed in private slaughter-houses; have you got any idea of that ?—No, I have none whatev er. 1995. You do not know whether it is an essential part cf the meat traele of Loudon, or whether it is only a small part ?—It is a very small, and of recent years a very much diminished quantity. Private slaughter-houses are a very much diminished quantity, there is no question about that. 1996. Why are they diminishing ?—That is very easily explained. Thirty years ago the dead meat trade had scarcely begun. The year 1866 was the year of the cattle plague, and I think that was the thing which gave the dead meat trade its first stimulus by the slaughtering of animals in the country, and the sending them to London. Then another thing which has revolutionised the traele is the large imports of frozen mutton. All the coarse parts of bullocks](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365076_0130.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
