§ MR. WALTER HAZELL (Leicester)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the systematic sale of large quantities of unwholesome meat just beyond the area supervised by the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London; whether he has considered the letter of Dr. Sedgwick Saunders, Food 1042 Analyst to the Commissioners, written in March of this year, in which he states that the sale of meat, which would be at once condemned as unfit for food by any competent meat inspectors, goes on openly in the shops referred to; that this outside market is in the area of the Holborn Board of Works, who have not sufficient trained inspectors to examine the meat, or any apparatus for dealing with it when it is condemned; and that, although the Commissioners of Sewers have made proposals to the Holborn District Board of Works to take over, for a time, the inspection of meat in the implicated area, the Holborn Board has neither accepted the offer nor dealt with the evil in any other way; and whether, in view of the fact that this meat is distributed over the Metropolis, involving great risk to the people who buy the worst of it in the street markets, where it is sold as cheap meat, he will use his influence with the Holborn Board of Works to insure efficient inspection of all the meat sold within their area, either in the way proposed by the Commissioners of Sewers or in some other way?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREI have no direct information on this subject, and the letter of Dr. Saunders has not been communicated to me. I have, however, been informed by the Holborn District Board that, on every occasion when complaints have been made to them by inspectors under the Commissioners of Sewers, of the nature referred to, they have done their best to investigate them, and have called for evidence to substantiate the charge, but that on no one occasion has evidence worthy of the name been put forward.