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33
OFFENSIVE AND INJURIOUS TRADES.
crafts, we have no statistics of any value to decide
on their mortality, and judgment on the matter
cannot be deduced from some half dozen cases,
known to any of us individually; but, further, if
we admit (which I by no means know to be the
case) that they are persons of average longevity
and healthiness, then it must be remembered that
their activity, their out-door exercise, and, above
all, their unlimited supply of animal food, are
circumstances conducing to give them health beyond
the average of their station; and it must be
remembered that these palliating circumstances,
though they may counteract the evil for those
persons most nearly concerned in it, contribute
nothing towards deodorising the neighbourhood,
or towards preserving its poorer inhabitants from
the depressive influence of putrid emanations.
And, as regards the district—although we have
certain evidence that organic decomposition is a
chief cause of disease, yet we do not invariably
find disease generated in immediate proximity to
the source of nuisance. Drainage beneath the soil,
and currents of air above it, convey the materials
of decomposition to a distance; and if the particular
slaughterhouses be placed on a high level
amidst the surrounding City, so that their drainage
be effectual and their ventilation complete, then
obviously their influence must be sought for, not
so much in any special aggravation of the local
mortality, as in certain remoter effects of their
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