166 BAILLY. 
slaughter-houses still existed in the interior of the capital — 
in 1788; for instance, at  Apport-Paris, La Croix-Rouge, 
in the streets of the Butcheries, Mont-Martre, Saint-Mar- 
tin, Traversine, &c. &c. The oxen were, consequently, 
driven in droves through frequented parts of the town; 
enraged by the noise of the carriages, by the excitements 
of the children, by the attacks or barking of the wander- 
ing dogs, they often sought to escape,—entered houses or 
alleys, spread alarm everywhere, gored people, and com- 
mitted great damage. Fetid gases exhaled from build- 
ings too small and badly ventilated ; the offal that had to 
be carried away gave out an insupportable smell; the 
blood flowed through the gutters of the neighbourhood, 
with other remains of the animals, and putrefied there. 
The melting of tallow, an inevitable annexation of all 
slaughter-houses, spread around disgusting emanations, 
and occasioned a constant danger of fire. 
So inconvenient, so repulsive a state of things, awak- 
ened the solicitude of individuals and of the public admin- 
istration ; the problem was submitted to our predecessors, 
and Bailly, as usual, became the reporter of the Academ- 
ical Committee. The other members were Messrs. Tillet, 
Darcet, Daubenton, Coulomb, Lavoisier, and Laplace. 
When Napoleon, wishing to liberate Paris from the 
dangerous and insalubrious results of internal slaughter- 
houses, decreed the construction of the fine slaughter- 
houses known by everybody, he found the subject already 
well examined, exhibited in all its points of view, in 
Bailly’s excellent work. “We ask,” said the reporter of 
the Academical Commission in 1788, “we ask that the 
shambles be removed to a distance from the interior of 
Paris;” and these interior shambles have disappeared 
accordingly. Does it create surprise that it required more 
