Town Milk. 
85 
into tho 1000 cubic foet per cow, wliicli is the rule that must bo observed (for 
instauoo, in St. Pancras) it' the cowl<GGpov wishes to avoid hemg opjwsed for a 
renewal of his licence. Theio are window places, which at winter tinio aro 
closed, perhaps with a bit of sacking nailed over thcni. 
" It is cither a clean and tidy place, where both the cowmen and their stock 
aro clean and dry and comfortable, everything in its place, the animals all 
lying down, having comlbrtably fed, and the air with no other perceptible 
smell than that of the chloride which the careful owner sprinkles once or twice 
a day along the gutter — or, it is a filthy hole. In general the accommodation 
— limited .as it is — is quite apart from the dwelling-house, but there aro 
cxce])tions even to this. — Such is the smaller but most numerous sort of 
London cowhouse. 
" Go a step higher, and you come upon a class of men many of them also 
occupying small farms near town, all of them employing very considerablo 
capital. They keep 30, 50, 80, or more cows apiece, and these are lodged 
either in larger establishments of the kind already described — not unfre- 
q\ieutly ram-shackle old buildings with yards attached, either Avith doublc- 
roofed cowhouses, or covering a square, sometimes with a floor overhead, and 
at others open to the roof, where the cows are arranged, first around the 
walls, and then in a square block head to head in the middle. Sometimes there 
are jiarallel rows of roofing together, and double rows of stalls under each. 
iVnd here, too, there is the same variety of management as to cleanliness and 
i.irder. I could point out some samj^les even of this higher class, which 
aro unquestionable nuisances, and others as clean and sweet as a parlour ; 
i'ur in this middle class of cowhouses, as they may be called, there arc 
examples of the very best style of cow accommodation. 
" Take for example Mr. Dancock's dairy already named : you enter through 
a wide gateway a passage roofed with glass, covered with vine-leaf and some- 
times grapes, leadmg you to a well-kept yard, with clean and comfortable 
cowshed on one side, and stabling, hay-house, and food-store on the other, 
and an inner cowhouse further on. Elsewhere, still in Chelsea, you may 
enter a larger yard in a poorer neighbourhood, and find shedding closed 
against the winter, providing as good accommodation, in single rows, for as 
good a herd of dairy cows as I ever saw — cleanliness and order being apparent 
everywhere. Or you may pass from a well-kept mews into a lofty, clean, 
and, though ceiled, well-ventilated and well-drained apartment, at least 12 
feet high, with, I should suppose, 60 square feet of standing ground to every 
beast — warm, well-watered, and well-fed. 
" In Marylebone (at Mr. Drewell's, Upper Weymouth-street) you find in a 
good street, a corner shop, where the side road leads to a well-kept first-class 
mews. The master takes you through his three-storied cowhouse, as you 
may call it — and first into an apartment for 12 or 10 cows, which is the 
quarantine station through which, after some weeks' trial, they pass into the 
other rooms, one directly overhead reached by a sloping gangwaj^, and tho 
(ither along-side but lower down. The floors are all closely bricked in cement, 
the upper one being laid on brick arches, and the drainage is everywhere 
perfect. Nowhere are there better, cleaner, neater, and sweeter cowhouses 
than, taking these examples as an illustration, may be kept and are to bo 
found in London streets. 
" Lastly, I come to the larger establishments, where 200 cows and upwards 
may be milked. And here, too, you find two classes of establishments — 
houses, on the one hand, where you can touch the ceiling, dark and dirty, and 
crowded with unfortunate beasts ; or where, in spite of ample space and lofty 
roof, the poor cows are comfortless and filthy — and places, on the other hand, 
where the accommodation is first-rate, roomj^ clean, and comfortable — a 
single cattle shed, it may be, like Mr. Camp's, in St. Pancras, in the midst of 
