Star.
London, England, 1828-10-17 00:00:00

THE BUTCHERS OF TilE METROPOLIS.

The master butchers of London. Westminster, and
their vicinity, had a public dinner yesterday at the Free.
mason.' Tavern, Great Queen•stree', to which about
300 of the principal men in the trade sat down at half-
past four o'clock.
The object of this kind of meeting, which is, we be-
lieve, new to the butchers as a body, seemed to be to
promote union in the trade, for the purpose of more
effectually opposing any legislative measures to establish
public slaughter-houses, or any other plans by which the
entire and perfect controul of the botcher. over his
own mode of coecincting his own business, might be
diminished.

After the removal of the cloth, Nor Nobis was sung,
and the usual round of loyal, patriotic, and other ap-
propriate toasts were gone through.
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Giblett) then rose to call the
attention of the company to the chief object for which .
they had assembled. He began by congratulating them
on the very numerous and highly respectable meeting
which he saw around him, which proved to him to de-
monstration that the butchers, to be respected, required
only to be known as a body. Ile then adverted to the
very unjust attacks which, he said, had been made upon
them for the manner in. which their business had been
carried on—to the attempts to prevent the slaughter-
ing of cattle within the city—and to the proposals
for the erection of public slaughter houses in the
environs, to which the trade should, be obliged to
lend their cattle to be killed. The butchers, he ob-
served, were as anxious as any persons in the metro-
polis could be that their trade should he conducted
with the least possible public inconvenience, and as
far as depended on them it would be so, if they got that
aid whica they bad a right 'to expect in the proper
+ratters ; but what might be called the nuisances con-
nected with the slaughter of cattle, did not, he con-
tended, arise from the butchers. or from their mode of
conducting their business; and, therefore, the removal
of their private slaughter-houses from the city would
not have the effect which the projectors of the abattoirs
described. The only effect it would bare would be the
almost ruin of the retail hoteliers, by obliging them to
remove their meat from a distance to their respective
shops. In illustration of the inconvenience of such a
practice, Mr. Giblett mentioned, that he had established
extensive premises for slaughtering his own cattle at
Bayswater, near Kensington, and, after an experience of
'about nine months, he found it would not answer; and
be would now willingly pay any rent, however high,
for premises nearer to his shop in town. After pointing
out the absurdity of taking from individuals the manage-
ment of their own concerns, Mr. Giblett concluded by
exhorting the trade to be united in their exertions, and
they must be successful in defeating their opponents.
Mr. M. SCALIA, in returning thanks for the health
of the Managing Committee being drunk, entered at
great length into a detail of the measures taken. by the
projectors of the abattoirs, and contended that such a
plan would be wholly ineffectual for any other object
than that of putting money into the pockets of the
authors of those projects.
In the course of the evening subscriptions to a consi-'
derable amount were entered into tb forward the objects
of the Committee in defending the interests of the trade.