Page:Description of the Abattoirs of Paris.djvu/17

Rh difficult to improve the internal arrangements of the Paris abattoirs, but if they were susceptible of amelioration, he was sure they would emanate from the Members of the Institution of Civil Engineers. At the abattoirs in Paris, the sheep were placed in small paddocks, the cattle had plenty of straw, and in some places grass yards, where they rested for some days, and were therefore in a perfectly healthy state when they were slaughtered; for it was of little real avail having the cattle apparently free from disease, if they were driven into a fever before they were killed, which was the case with nearly all the cattle brought into the metropolis. In Paris too there was no waste of the offal, all the parts of the animal being systematically converted into their immediate profitable use. Now that the blood was not entirely used for purifying sugar, the French adopted a chemical process, for converting it into a solid manure, which appeared to be equal to guano; and all those operations were carried on without that extent of injury and inconvenience to the neighbourhood, which appeared inseparable from the system of this country.

Another advantage was, that the butcher, getting his meat in a better condition, was able to keep it fresh much longer than it could generally be kept in London, for he had seen in Clare Market fine joints of meat thrown on to the offal heap and carted away in thirty hours after the slaughter of the animal; this had been the case with carcases which had been suspended for only one night in the tainted atmosphere of the slaughter-house.The owners of these places appeared not to know, that a piece of fresh meat, placed within the atmosphere of tainted meat, would rapidly partake of the corruption, and seemed also not to be aware, that their filth and ignorance combined to make them pay a large fine out of their own pockets, in the shape of meat thrown away, if it could not be forced, by its cheapness, on the poor inhabitants of the district. He wished, if the Parisian system was introduced into London, that its benefits should be enjoyed by all; but he feared, without due legislative control, that the benefit of it would be obtained only by the spirited individuals who got up, on private grounds, the first movement in the right direction; it was right they should be rewarded, but he thought it was better that the movement should be so directed, as to ensure a benefit to all classes. It was a fallacy to suppose that Englishmen would not endure the restrictions, to which the butchers were subjected in Paris; there were other classes of men equally sensitive, and possessing the true spirit of Englishmen, who had for years (until lately) endured a more galling interference,—he meant the supervision of the glass-makers, the