FARM-KILLED PIGS.

Southland Times, Issue 22998, 18 September 1936, Page 9

FARM-KILLED PIGS.

To the Editor.

Sir, —It vias with horror that I learned from a paragraph in Thursday’s issue of The Southland Times that it is possible for the wives of working men to purchase in Invercargill meat that' is affected with tuberculosis and other

diseases. To most people it is a disgusting state of affairs when the town councillors wink at such a practice and make such a sham about their city abattoirs. Why they forbid the sale of mutton or beef without the abattoir stamp that it has been passed by the health 1 .inspector and then allow diseased pigs to be sold in their city streets passes my understanding. What good is the Plunket Society if it allows the children to be fed on questionable food? I would make an appeal to the mothers of Invercargill to make sure that the bacon they buy has not been cured in some outbuilding on a farm and handed on to the grocer to balance the account. The freezing works are the proper place for the inspection of all the meat from the country. The inspectors must know their job. We must have pork and bacon. In England bacon and eggs is the national breakfast. When times are hard the eggs are left out. It is the cheapest breakfast for the working man and I hope something is done. You have got to get permission to open a butcher s shop and keep your shop clean, but you can kill a pig in the stye and cure him in the henhouse and without inspection sell the bacon. Here’s hoping that someone does something to “bring home the bacon fresh and clean. —Yours, etc., WAKE-UP AND CLEAN-UP. Invercargill, September 12, 1936. [Mr C. V. Dayus, M.R.C.V.S., District Superintendent of the Department of Agriculture for Otago and Southland to whom the letter was referred said that under the existing Slaughtering Inspection Act there was nothing .to prevent a bona fide farmer slaughtering pigs on the farm for sale, provided that he did not kill more than five in any one week, unless specially authorized in writing by an inspector. It was not lawful, however, knowingly to slaughter, or allow to be used for, human consumption, any stock which is diseased. From this it would be seen, Mr Dayus said, that pigs could be killed on the farm and sold to a butcher in Invercargill. However, the carcasses of all pigs arriving at butchers’ shops and bacon curing establishments in the city of Invercargill were subject to inspection by an inspector under the Slaughtering Inspection Act. If any carcass was found to be infected with any scheduled disease, the whole carcass was totally condemned, irrespective of the degree of the disease. Every reasonable precaution that could be taken under the existing legislation, was taken to ensure that there was no possibility of the public consuming diseased meat. Officers of the City Council said yesterday that because the regulations demanding that stock should be killed at a freezing works or an abattoir did not apply to pigs, the inspection of pigs did not come within the council's jurisdiction.]