PERCENTAGE OF ODDMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 19924, 21 July 1928, Page 11

PERCENTAGE OF ODDMENTS

BUTCHERS AND ABATTOIR PRACTICE [P ,e Unitfc Press Association.] WELLINGTON, July 20. The Appeal Court to-day _ delivered judgment iu the case of Smith v. the Blenheim Borough Council. The judgment stated: The circumstances in this case, in tho court’s opinion, not only did not show that the controlling authority was wrong, but on tho contrary, they showed that tho by-law was reasonable and proper. The appeal is dismissed, with costs on the lowest scale. This was a case in which James Smith, of Blenheim, butcher, appealed against the decision of Mr Justice Ostler. Tho facts wore that tho Blenheim Borough Conned acted under the authority of the Slaughtering and Inspection Act, 1908, as amended by the Act of 1910, which gives power to such authorities to make regulations—(a) prescribing the charges payable for tho use of abattoirs and the feeding of stock before slaughter and the slaughtering of each head of stock, and (b) regulating the working and management of tho abattoirs by means of a by-law prescribing a fixed fee for the slaughtering of each head of stock, and containing a clause giving the butchers the right to take certain percentages of oddments from the animals slaughtered mi their behalf. This by-law was duly > approved by the Governor-General in 1915, and had been in force ever since. The appellant, John Smith, brought in the court below a, motion to quash tin's _ by-law, contending that the power given by tho Act is power to make money charges, and that there is no power to make charges in kind'; lhao the property in all its parts and the beast slaughtered belong to tho butcher who owns’ the beast; and that the by-law, in addition to making a charge for its slaughter, purports to confiscate a part of the owner’s property. This oantention, however, was not upheld, and the motion was dismissed. The appellant then appealed from this decision.