MEAT INSPECTION 
47 
and that the Board be asked whether they will include in any legislation introduced by them in con- 
nection with the Royal Commission's Report the provisions which would be necessary for this purpose. 
The Council, however, owing no doubt to the powerful opposition of the Meat and 
Cattle Trade Associations, has shelved the matter for the present. 
(c) Sir Richard Thorne says : — 
How is the very proper demand of the butchers for uniformity in the conditions regulating the 
seizure of carcasses on account of tuberculosis to be met ? How is such skilful handling of slightly 
tuberculous carcasses to be attained as will secure the removal of the diseased portions in such a way that no 
risk shall attach to the remainder ? I only know one answer, namely, by the abolition, as far as practicable, 
of private slaughterhouses, by the provision in all large centres of population, whether technically styled 
urban or rural, of public slaughterhouses under the direct control of the sanitary authorities and their 
officers, and by the adoption of measures which will, as soon as practicable, provide a class of skilled meat 
inspectors. 
The properly administered public slaughterhouse is demanded as an act of justice to those trading 
in meat ; it is demanded in the interests of public health and decency ; it is demanded for the prevention 
of cruelty to the lower animals, and it is demanded in order to bring England, if not the United Kingdom, 
somewhat nearer to the level of other civilized nations in this matter 
Public slaughterhouses, officered by skilled inspectors, and supervized by medical officers of health, 
are urgently required, amongst other reasons, for the prevention of tuberculosis in man. 
Private Slaughterhouses 
It is obvious to anyone how inefficient meat inspection must be where there are a large 
number of private slaughterhouses in a town. The occupiers naturally slaughter at times to suit 
their own convenience, and not that of the inspector. In Liverpool, with a population of 
668,000, we have, besides an abattoir owned by a private company, only 30 private slatighter- 
houses, and we have five meat inspectors who devote their whole time to the work. But in 
smaller places where there are perhaps many more slaughterhouses and no special inspectors, meat 
inspection becomes very often practically a dead letter. One remedy suggested for this state of 
things is to increase the number of meat inspectors, as being cheaper than closing all private 
slaughterhouses and building municipal ones. Cheaper it would be, of course, and better than 
the present conditions, but how far behind the methods adopted, for example, in Germany. 
And even if, as has been suggested, one inspector to every ten slaughterhouses be appointed, 
the question of insanitary conditions under which slaughtering takes place in many private 
slaughterhouses would not be remedied, though it might be improved. 
Regulations in Foreign Countries 
Both in arrangements for slaughtering and in meat inspection, England is very far behind 
when compared with continental countries, as those of us who have studied the subject in Berlin, 
Leipzig, and other places know well. In these towns well-managed municipal slaughterhouses 
exist — all private ones have been abolished ; and all meat, whether killed at the abattoirs or 
imported, must be inspected and stamped by competent inspectors before being sold. In Germany 
laws were passed in 1868, 1876, 1879, and 1881 dealing directly with the question of the provision 
of public slaughterhouses, the prohibition of the erection of private slaughterhouses, and other 
matters connected therewith. These are the general slaughtering acts, and when the town 
