NORTHCOTE.—THE PROPOSED SLAUGHTERHOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 145, 21 June 1899, Page 2

NORTHCOTE.—THE PROPOSED SLAUGHTERHOUSE.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—ln your issue of the 14th is a long letter from Mr Joshua Jackson re the application of a firm of local butchers for license to erect a slaughterhouse and yards. Mr Jackson's letter is not quite accurate. In the first place he says the intended slaughterhouse is but one mile and a quarter from the wharf. It is one mile and a half as the crow flies, two miles by road. He goes on to speak of the damaging effect it will have on contiguous property, especially Golden Hills. The name emanated from a poor unfortunate who is now in the lunatic asylum. True, they are golden, but it is with furze, and are for lease by the Hospital Trustees at 5/ per acre. He goes on to deplore the contamination of the projected water supply, but how a reservoir a hundred feet above the slaughterhouses can be contaminated is difficult to conjecture. The good running stream of fresh water is in fact a salt water creek. The native bush is nearly all cut down. Then the sharks that are to {ravel in one foot of water to attack the bathers—he surely means eels. What the Sulphur Beach has to do with the barren spur that the projected slaughterhouse is to be erected on is equivalent to saying the Auckland Freezing Works is a nuisance to Freeman's Bay. Then he goes on to write about the utility of the said slaughterhouse. The farmers, or, as Mr Jackson calls them, the cockatoos, have no fat cattle or sheep; he has never seen one for 15 years. Well, all that I can say is that between Lucas' Creek and the Lake there are hundreds of fat cattle and sheep, and the pressing want and universal cry is for a local butcher to purchase and thus save 40 miles of driving to the yards in AucklaJid. It is strange that Mr Jackson should complain of the projected site on a barren spur out of the way of all and everybody when on the main Lake road is a slaughterhouse license granted by the Waitemata C.C. to a local farmer. Again, at Birkenhead is a slaughterhouse owned by a local farmer, also licensed by the Waitemata C.C, in active operation. No one complains of these two slaughterhouses. As to the offensiveness, that is for the Inspector and local Health Officer to take action. It is the concensus of opinion of residents here that a slaughterhouse is needed. The meat would thus be saved much handling and knocking about. It is a most regrettable thing that any new-comer should always have obstacles thrown in the way of his enterprise. It is to be hoped that the Waitemata C.C. and the Hospital Trustees will view with favour a most necessary enterprise and grant the applicants a license for a slaughterhouse.—l am, etc., ROBERT G. lIAWES,

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—After reading the correspondence which has appeared In your columns concerning the granting of a slaughterhouse license at Xorthcote, the residents must be convinced that Mr Jackson was not at all hasty In rushing into print, and deserves the thanks of the community for his vigilance. He only gave expression to the general feeling in regard to this matter. We are all agreed that there is no necessity for a slaughterhouse, there being no cattle about the district, for the simple reason that the soil is too poor to support them. The proposed glnughterhouse would only benefit the parties immediately concerned, and certainly would not improve land values, if it were not detrimental to them. This district has an established reputation for healthiness, and it is our duty to support Mr Jackson and take every sanitary precaution to keep it so. Even if every particle of refuse from the shambles is utilised, and every precaution is taken to keep it clean, it would be wiser to refuse the license. Without the slaughterhouse there will be no refuse to dispose of, while to establish one might only make more work for the doctors.—l am, etc.,

RESIDENT.

Sir, —In lnst night's Issue of your paper Messrs Elgin and Nightingale stated what will practically ruin the locality of Northcote. Northcote at present is a rising suburb, and I am sure there are not many Aucklunders who would be pleased to see Northeotn ruined for the sake of the pockets of two Londoners. As Mr Jaokson has been a fellow-citizen longer than the applicants, I think his wish should be thought the most of. Ponsonby, with its would-be pretty creeks, is spoilt by slaughterhouses, etc. Why should Northcote bo likewise treated? If they want to build a slaughterhouse let them build it outside North Head. H.D.

—I am, etc.,