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30
OFFENSIVE AND INJURIOUS TRADES.
lish this restriction, which (it was argued) would be
equivalent to a direct suppression of many existing
slaughter-houses.
Considering that, in my first recommendations
to the Commission, I ought to confine myself to
objects attainable by means of the Act of Parliament
then just coming into operation, I felt myself
precluded for the time from entering on the subject
(however important in itself) of the total abolition
of urban slaughtering. Now, however, while
treating generally of sanitary improvement for the
City, I can have no hesitation in repeating an
opinion which I have already submitted to the
Health-Committee of the Common Council; and I
beg accordingly to state that 1 consider slaughtering
within the City as both directly and indirectly
prejudicial to the health of the population;—
directly, because it loads the air with effluvia of decomposing
animal matter, not only in the immediate
vicinity of each slaughter-house, but likewise
along the line of drainage which conveys away its
washings and fluid filth; indirectly, because many
very offensive and noxious trades are in close dependence
on the slaughtering of cattle, and round
about the original nuisance of the slaughter-house,
within as narrow limits of distance as circumstances
allow, you invariably find established the
concomitant and still more grievous nuisances of
gut-spinning, tripe-dressing, bone-boiling, tallowmelting,
paunch-cooking, &c. Ready illustrations