Page:Description of the Abattoirs of Paris.djvu/7

 INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.

February 6, 1849.

JOSHUA FIELD, President, in the Chair.

No. 795.—" Description of the Abattoirs of Paris." By Richard Boxall Grantham, M. Inst. C. E.

Amongst the various measures which must be speedily adopted for the sanitary improvement of large towns, one of the most important is that of public slaughter-houses; it therefore becomes necessary, that their construction and management should be carefully studied, but as so few attempts have hitherto been made to introduce them into this country, at least with any degree of arrangement, examples must be sought for on the Continent, where they are almost universally adopted.

The abattoirs of Paris are perhaps, on the whole, the best specimens of establishments of this class, and their administration and statistics present some very remarkable features which deserve examination, previous to commencing similar constructions in Great Britain.

The butcher's trade in Paris is conducted on a peculiar system, and, like almost every other business, is under the control, or surveillance of the police, or municipal authorities; indeed the extent to which this is carried, would here be deemed a great interference with the liberty of the subject; and would not be tolerated. Apart from this, there are many excellent regulations, which, whilst they prevent the unpleasant operations of that trade from becoming a nuisance, or being prejudicial to the health of the public, facilitate the computation of the fluctuations in the prices of food, enabling the masses to be provided for with certainty, and furnishing data for most interesting and instructive returns for the statist. At the same time they afford the means of controlling a class of men, who, from the very nature of their occupations, have become strangers to all the finer feelings. The abattoirs are prominent