UNWHOLESOME FOOD SUPPLIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11333, 29 July 1897, Page 4

UNWHOLESOME FOOD SUPPLIES.

If anything were required to arouse the people of Christchurch to a proper sense of the danger they run in neglecting to provide adequate means for the inspection of their food supplies, it would he found in the report submitted , by-. tha Inspoq£or

of Slaughterhouses to the Selwyn County Council at its meeting yester- , day morning. We are beginning to ifear, however, that nothing short of 'an enormous increase in the numjter of fatalities from the imiplaeahle diseases that are popularly iattributed to the consumption of : unwholesome meat and milk will induce our public bodies to take effective steps to remove the evil. _ Even this stimulus may' he found in the 'near future. Statistics from all parts of the colony tell of the rapid spread .of cancer and consumption, and it ■only requires a few more years of the present’ inaction to produce a death iroll which will give New Zealand an {Unenviable notoriety. We have no wish to act the part of alarmists, but the report to which we have just referred shows that there is ample reason for the application of an immediate remedy. The Inspector writes of cows he has* condemned as being full of tuberculosis,” and of others fie has detected in the saleyards as being “badly diseased ” with “ broken tumours on tbeir jaws.” During the present month at least a dozen beasts whichmight have carried disease into scores of unsuspecting families have been intercepted at one stage or another of their progress towards the butchers’ shops or the milkmen’s dairies. And everyone knows, of course, that for every animal which passes under the Inspector’s eye, there are a dozen which escape his examination. Probably a larger proportion of these than of those that pass through the saleyards are diseased, and it is not pleasant to contemplate' the net result. The only reliable safeguards, as we have pointed out again and again, are the institution of a vigorous and systematic inspection of dairy cows and the establishment of a properly-equipped abattoir. The present Inspector does all that can he done under a defective system, but at best his efforts merely emphasise the need for reform. Surely the ,C4ty Council, which. ought to be much more interested in this question than the body which employs the Inspector, will not require many more disgusting reports or many more •disquieting statistics to bring it to ■realise that “ saving the rates ” is not ■he only duty it owes to the people pf Christchurch.