530 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



increased. That would always be the case, and it was an additional 

 reason why abattoirs or slangliter-honses should be established within 

 tolerable distances of town fur the summer sujiply ; for at that season 

 it could not bo safe to depend altogether upon distant counties, 

 though it might on the home counties. The Commissioners further 

 stated that they had been informed by the trade that the farmer 

 would be induced by steam carriage to learn to slaughter, pack, 

 and consign. Again, they also said that forty years previously there 

 were only 13 salesmen in Newgate Market, and that in 1849 they had 

 increased to 200. This showed the great development of the meat 

 trade in consequence of the use of steam carriage. Formerly, it 

 appeared, the home counties only could send dead meat into the 

 London market ; but in 1849 much of it came from Scotland, as 

 it did now ; and they added a fact which he was not acquainted 

 with before reading their report, and it increased his sense of the 

 inadequacy of Newgate Market — that the area of that market was 

 only 2 roods 45 perches. 



When one considered the enormous quantity of dead meat that was 

 sent into Newgate Market, all packed and piled up, it was scarcely 

 possible to conceive the scene of confusion presented there. Vans 

 and carts were crammed into a street only 16 feet in width, where one 

 could not pass another, and there they were unpacked in the midst of 

 crowds of purchasers. The Commissioners in their report likewise 

 referred to the disgusting manner in which the men carried the meat 

 on their shoulders in contact with their heads and faces, and the dirty 

 handling to which the carcases were subjected. They spoke besides 

 of the quantity of meat which was spoiled for want of air and space 

 to hang it in. 



Then there was an interesting article with regard to the probable 

 extention and rapid rise of the dead-meat traific, which appeared 

 in one of the numbers of the ' Quarterly Eeview ' in the year 1854, to 

 which he would direct attention, as the information it contained had 

 struck him with great force. That article was founded very much 

 upon the report of the Commission already referred to. At that 

 time it stated there were 36,487 tons of dead meat annually pitched, 

 into London; that the Eastern Counties Eailway supplied 10,398 

 tons, and the Great Western 13,152 tons, and that the Eastern Counties 

 in one Christmas week sent to Newgate Market 1000 tons of dead 

 meat. It went on to state that the annual value of the meat consumed 

 in London was upwards of 14,000,000Z. sterling ; and reference was 

 made to the importance of making railway arrangements for the 

 transport of dead meat, so as not to injure it. 



He would next pass on to notice the report of the Committee of the 

 House of Commons, which sat in 1856. That report contained much, 

 interesting evidence with respect to the metropolitan meat market, 

 which he had not had time to go into thoroughly ; but he would just 

 take a brief glance at it. Amongst other things, it mentioned the 

 single road leading to Newgate Market, that only one carriage could 

 pass at a time, and the complete blocking up of the approaches by 

 vans and carts. It then proceeded to say that steam had given a. 



