The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-22 00:00:00

TRANSLATION OF SMITHFIELD

MARKET.
(From the Spectator.)
In comparing the two plans before the public for improv-
ing the meat market, there are more elements for considera-
tion than the simple merits of either plan. Government
proposes to remove Smithfield, which would be an absolute
good. The Corporation proposes a very comprehensive plan,
which can scarcely be said to remove Smithfield Market, in
the popular sense of carrying it out of town, but which
would totally remove two other nuisances, and would remove
the most serious objections to a live-meat market in the
centre of the metropolis. A pamphlet has just issued from
the press, for the purpose of making this plan clear to the
public mind; and we must say that it has very greatly mo-
dified our opinion.•
To that easily procured document we may refer for a dis-
tinct and graphic account of the plan and of its contingent
advantages ; but its general nature may be very briefly indi-
cated. On the Western side of Smithfield lies a region of
agglomerated nuisances—narrow crooked streets and laby-
rinthine alleys, private slaughter-houses, low skin-dressers,
and tripe-makers, low lodging-houses, and worse. Behind
the India-house is a long-doomed nuisance, called Leaden-
hall Market, for killed meat. Now both these comprehen-
sive nuisances are to be absolutely removed. The bad region
West of Smithfield is to be cleared out, and on its site is to
be constructed avast market covering an area larger than Lin-
coln's Inn-fields, with a frontage Westwards, and new streets
surrounding it. In the front part would be the market for
killed meat, a broad parallelogram building ; behind that
the cattle market, of an amphitheatric form, surrounded by a
wall, and outside that by an open street. The extreme back
of the semicircular wall would abut upon the present Smith-
field. To the dexter side of the market front, Northwards,
would lie a range of slaughter-houses. By this plan the
market would be entirely shut away from the thoroughfare.
The newest improvements of drainage, ventilation, &c., would
practically annul the substantial nuisances wising ftom the
assemblage of so many beasts and the slaughtering; the
blood and other effusions being carried off by the great sewer
to the Essex marshes. We presume that humanity would
be conciliated by finally adopting the new mode of slaughter-
ing beasts—puncturing the spinal cord. The passage of
cattle through the streets of London is chiefly injurious in
the day ; by an absurd enactment, it can now take place
only during that bad time : according to the plan of the Cor-
poration, it would be limited to the night. Perhaps it
would be possible to disarm it altogether of any unpleasant
or formidable consequences, by placing the beasts in move-
able pens, of which they would themselves be the motive
power.
Let us survey the contingent advantages of the plan.
Smithfield cleared out, and made the site of model lodging-
houses, baths, fountains, &c. (for that is a constituent part of
the scheme) ; the region to the West, a shocking nest of
nuisances, diseases, and abominations, cleared out, and a
handsome market substituted ; Leadenhall Market abolished ;
the cattle traffic of the day abolished ; a central market re-
tained, and the transit of cattle across London, from the
Southern counties and the docks, minimized. Practically,
this seems to us to secure more than was promised by the
mere exile of Smithfield out of the City— a great deal more.
There is another element in the calculation. Government
promises are now reckoned in the same category with lovers'
vows, pie-crusts, and egg-shell—Government has a" Bill,"
but when the public shall have the consequent fact, who
'shall say ? The Corporation also has a Bill, and it generally
'honours its bills; it is ready to make the scheme a great
fact—now.

* ‘'the Moral and Sanitary Aspects of the New Central
Cattle Market, as proposed by the Corporation of the City of
London. With Plans. By J. Stevenson Bushnan, M.D.,
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh ; Senior Physician
to the Dletropolitan Free Hospital, &c." Published by Orr
and Co.

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Jack
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