PUBLIC ABATTOIRS.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 9, 2 June 1894, Page 6

PUBLIC ABATTOIRS.

(to the editor). Sir,—You published a letter last week in reference to the necessity for the establishment of public slaughteryards as a means of preventing diseased meat from getting into general consumption. lam a plain, practical man, and have neither the ability nor the inclination to discuss such questions as the transmission of disease from animals to man. My object in writing is to express the opinion, founded on a lengthened experience, that public slaughter-yards would not meet the case. All that is wanted is a rigorous and systematic inspection of the stock submitted for sale at the various yards. The butchers who buy on such occasions will not, in their own interests, purchase animals bearing outward indications of disease they look for good healthy-lock Hg beasts, with glossy coats and in good condition. 1 consider the butchers may safely be left to see to this point ; but what should be guarded against is the practice that sometimes obtains of certain dealers buying up animals rejected by butchers and selling them privately, or of owners killing stock that they don’t hke to bring to the yards. Public slaughter-yards would not prevent the sale of doubtful meat by such dealers and owners. An improvement might be effected by the prohibition of the sale by auction of dead meat—a remedy more comprehensive than public abattoirs is certainly wanted. If the thing were gone into closely I think it would be found that the butchers are not| such dreadful sinners as some people endeavour to make them out to be.—Yours, etc., H. Yickery. Clifton, May 31, 1894.