Abstract
PROF. J. H. JONES delivered the twelfth annual Benjamin Ward Richardson Memorial lecture on November 30 before the Model Abattoir Society, his subject being slaughter-house reform. He said that slaughtering is at present conducted in small private slaughter-houses or in municipal slaughter-houses. The former are often inefficient inasmuch as the scale of organisation prevents the proper utilisation of by-products and in other ways adds to expenses. There are also serious disadvantages connected with municipal slaughter-houses, as not only are they on too small a scale, but also they are merely a collection of stalls for private butchers. In view of the wastefulness of the present system, the Committee of the Economic Advisory Council on the Slaughtering of Livestock, of which Prof. Jones is a member, has recommended a scheme based on regional monopoly. It has recommended the appointment of a National Slaughter-Houses Board, that is, a statutory non-profit-making body to prepare regional shcmes to be operated by regional authorities, which might be either joint boards of local authorities or existing associations prepared to provide their own finances. The regional authority would provide the service of the slaughter of animals and the transport of meat to the centres of retail distribution. It would not itself purchase animals and sell meat; on the other hand, it would purchase and itself work up the by-products. It might appear at first sight to create a new departure by establishing a monopoly of slaughtering within each of the selected regions, but monopoly is already a privilege of the municipal slaughter-houses of Scotland and in a few of them a serious attempt is being made to utilise by-products. The recommendations appear to be in line with modern British development and to provide a scheme which would be both efficient on the technical side and likely to improve the inspection of meat and humane slaughter. The scheme would not apply to the trade in Kosher-killed meat.
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Slaughter-House Reform. Nature 132, 887 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132887a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132887a0