THE RAID ON SLAUGHTERHOUSES AT PORT.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1929, 30 April 1880, Page 3

THE RAID ON SLAUGHTERHOUSES AT PORT.

To tlie Editor of the Globe.

Sib, —May I have space in your columriß for a few words upon a matter which interests a good many of your readers here. It is the action taken by the Council in reference to our slaughterhouses. In the proceedings of that body published in the Gxobb yesterday, I saw that a certain firm of butchers had received a notice to make extensive changes in their slaughterhouses. Some time since another of our local butchers was similarly harassed by objections made to his butchering premises, and barely escaped having his place confiscated by a mandate of the Council. Now, air, as one of the beef-eating ratepayers of Lyttelton, I conceive that a very great waste of zeal (not veal, for it is too valuable, seeing we never get a bit under 8d per lb), but of the less costly borough commodity— Councilmen's zeal—is being let out ostensibly, and professedly for the public good, about this business of slaughtering the quadrupeds. We have five butchers in port, and I would take a bet that scarcely twenty of our population know where they do their killing. So far removed from the haunts of men are these abbattoires, that nothing short of a vigilance committee of Councillors, armed with a horse and buggy, might ever hope to discover their whereabouts. No one, I believe, has ever made a complaint formally to tho Council about the offensiveness of having these places bo remote from tho abodes of civilization, not even the butchers themselves, who reasonably enough might have protested against the arbitrary restrictions imposed on them in their business. But from the action of the powers that be, it is possible that a meeting of the ratepayers will be forthwith convened and a committee de epidemico inquirendo straightaway appointed, with power to hire a buggy in which to go, and make diligent search for these murderous pest-houses, where the blood of the innooent slain (bullocks) ories out for vengeance. Or couldn't we organise a Royal -laughterhouse Commission, before whom the local Knights of Eaculapius might testify to the unwholsomeness of hams and bacon, and the indigestableness of pork chops generally, having special reference to slaughter yard fed swine. I, for one, like a real good hobby, not one of your make-shift agitations, that is satisfied with making meek suggestions for exterminating butchers' shops, and then sneaks off directly it scents the green peas, without the roast lamb, but one of your bold defiant hobbies that scouts tho idea of animal food, and attributes all the ills that flesh is heir to to that horrid roast beef. Why a hobby such as our Councillors have of objecting to eat meat that was killed and dressed on a wooden floor instead of concrete isn't worthy the name. Let us have facts. If the liver complaint so prevalent amongst us is caused by the consumption of pigs who feed upon the livers of their horned friends, the cattle, let it be known, and have the law invoked against rearing cattle with livers in them. And let similar justice be meted out to the hogs for causing hoggishness, sheep sheepishness, and the mules for mulishness. But, until these effects are incontrovertibly proved, don't let the mind of man be worried to distraction, his body become emaciated and feeble, and his taste vitiated by telling him that the beefsteak he longs to have grilled was killed by a heartless and unclean slaughterman that scrupled not to stab his dumb victim, and afterwards take the blood-dripping knife between his own teeth. And to you, my esteemed Councillors, I would eay, Don't worry yourselves about imaginary troubles ; time enough for you to put down the slaughter houses when tho patrons of them, your constituents, petition you, as they will the moment they regard them 33 public nuisances. In the meantime, I beg to say that your efforts in this lino are misdirected, and if persisted in, will bring you into ridicule and contempt. Yours, &c, Cora> Pig. Lyttelton, April 23'h.