The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-02 00:00:00

" The effluvia arising from the blood and the entrails
of animals, whet e recently slaughtered, renders the curry-
ing on of such business in the precincts of large towns
incompatible with due sanatory regulations, even when
the offal and filth are speedily and effectually removed.
In scarcely one instance, however, in which shambles or
slaughter-houses have come under the observation of the
Commissioners, either in the metropolis or in provincial
cities and towns, have there been found iu force any
regulations or authoritative supervision to compel the
speedy and regular removal of offal from, or the efficient
cleansing of such places. They have, on the contrary,
been found to be, almost without exception, centres of
the diffusion of noisome influences, affecting, with more
or less intensity, the immediate vicinity, deteriorating
the sanatory condition of the surrounding population,
commonly poor and dense, as recorded in the local re-
ports of the Commissioners,land in a more remote degree
vitiating the general atmosphere of the town, and thus
`►ecoming a nuisance to the inhabitants at large."
It may be laid down as a general principle, that all the
towns of England suffer more or less in this way ; and
that a thorough change is needful. In the " Report on the
Sanatory Condition ofßristol,"it is stated, that—

"Slaughter-houses in Bristol are scattered over the
town without any special regulations. Very frequently
they are situated in unventilated courts, and are much
complained ot; both by medical witnesses and by the in-
habitants of the courts themselves."

Dr. Reid, in his "Report on the Northern Cities and
Towns," states that,—

" Private slaughter-houses formed on the whole the
most extreme subjects of complaint, and to such an ex•
tent do they prevail, and so little are they confined to
particular sites, that one of the worst cases occurs in a
central street in Newcastle, or, at least, immediately ad-
joining it."

Dr.-Iteid further gives it as his opinion, that—
"ln all drained and low-lying districts, slaughter-
houses very often, if not always, sustain a perpetual
malaria around the neighbouring habitations : they are
a fruitful source of fever and other diseases.
Similar evidence is given by Dr. Shapter in his report
on Exeter. He says:
" More inconvenience is suffered from the keeping of
pigs and the nuisance of slaughter-houses; both these
nuisances are most urgent, and prevail to a greater ex-
tent than is generally supposed, and by the poor obliged
to live within their influence is much complained of.
Cases frequently occur of serious fevers, nervous pains,
and sickness of stomach, which they refer entirely to
swallowing' bad smells from these resources."
Similar evils also exist to a great extent in the Lanca-
shire towns. Dr. Lyon Playfair says in his report, that,
from the state of the law,

" If these slaughter-houses be in private courts they
are permitted to remain, however injurious to the in-
habitants, and in whatever state of filth they may be
kept. Thus, in the township of Manchester alone, there
are seventy-seven slaughter-houses (in many instances
six or eight butchers killing at the same place); but all
these are without regulations. In Bolton, for example,
I found several courts in which the middens attached to

he slaughter-houses were filled with the offal of the
laughtered animals, and had not been cleansed for at

leasi-two months. In other towns I have found slaughter-
houses below dwelling- houses, the smell in which was
roost insufferable, and in many of these dwellings the in-
habitants looked pale and sickly, and charrecea fre-
quently prevailed, although. absent from the courts con-
tiguous."
The foregoing extracts will be sufficient to show the
general bearing of the matter under consideration on the
public health and comfort, but they do not comprehend
all that is objectionable; for the commissions rs state
that " A second evil and nuisance, necessarily contingent
upon the locality of slaughter-houses, however strin-
gently supervised and regulated, in the miebt of large
ind populous towns, is the quantity of animal ordury
deposited upon the public streets and thoree..-1
Leading to such slaughter-houses, which, besides fermihe'
a most ofFen4ve addition to the ordinary surface filth,
excites and accelerates its decomposition, This evil is
augmented in the ratio of the size of the town ; and
where, as in London, most of the surface filth of the
streets is washed down into the seaers, the continual
passage of cattle, sheep, an.l pigs, in the neighbourhood
of the intra mural slaughter-houses, must materially in-
crease the amount of that decomposing matter, the ema
nations of which are constantly escaping from the en-
trapped gully-holes, to infect the atmosphere of the
metropolis. Nor ought the occasionally fatal injuries,
and the constant peril of life and limb incurred by the
inhabitants of large towns, the streets of which are so
frequently traversed by goaded and over-driven cattle, to
be overlooked in an enumeration of the inevitable evils of
slaughter-houses situated in the crowded parts of towns,
and as strengthening the more general sanatory grounds
for urging upon the Legislature the expediency of abo-
lishing them, and of establishing properly constructed
and efficiently regulated places for slaughtering cattle in
the suburbs."
In these opinions we entirely concur ; for we believe
that nothing short of the absolute prohibition of
slaughter-houses in towns will afford an adequate re-
medy. The poor, in this as in other things, are the chief
sufferers ; and it matters little whether they be subject
to nuisance from private shambles or public establish-
ments, for in either case the injury is inflicted. The
situation of the public slaughter-houses in Liverpool
renders them a source of great annoyance to the neigh-
bourhood, and it is not the less an offence against right
feeling that they are placed amidst the dwellings of the
industrious classes. We have learned on competent
authority that the noisome exhalations which proceed
from them are found to produce the usual effects ob-
served in other towns, such as diarrhoea, sickness,
nervous complaints, &c. ; and persons suffering from
these diseases have been obliged to change their resi-
dence before recovery could take place. The value
f
property has also, in some instances, been deteriorated.
It It is proposed by the Sanatory Improvement Act to
limit the slaughtering of_animals, for wholesale pur-
poses, to the public establishments. This willnodoubt
be a boon to those localities where there are private
shambles, but it will increase the nuisance arising from
the public slaughter-houses.
Previous to the year 1809, the cit • of Paris had suf-
fered to such an extent from the existence f private
shambles, that it was determined to abolish them entirely,
and erect five vast abbatc.irs beyond the boundaries of