work are rendered and dried on the premises during the same day, and while they are yet perfectly fresh and untainted.

It has for a long time been the custom of the Brighton butchers to have, in connection with their slaughter-houses, a cooling-room or refrigerator, in which the meat is kept at a temperature of 40. F. for several days before sending it to market. These conditions required—

First, That the slaughtering should be done upon a raised floor, over a basement story, for convenience of handling the blood and offal,

Second, That "cool-rooms," with ice-chambers over them, should be provided for each slaughter-house. By reference to the plan and section (figs. 95, 96) of one of the beef slaughter-houses, it will be seen that each covers a space 38 feet wide by 30 long, or 1140 square feet. Out of this space a room 20 feet square is taken, with double walls (2 feet thick) packed with fine shavings, for a cool-room, in which the meat is hung for several days before being sent to market. The temperature is maintained in warm weather by the cold air from an ice-box of 15 to 20 tons capacity, built over the cool-room and connected with it. The circulation of air between the cool-room and the ice-box is regulated by means of valves in the air-ducts. The remaining space, 15 feet wide, is used for slaughtering the cattle. The floor is of double plank, calked watertight like the deck of a ship, and laid upon iron beams, with a slope to an iron gutter which catches the blood and conveys it below. There are several trap-doors in this floor, through which the hides, offal, &c., are dropped into separate iron tanks on wheels in the basement. The slaughtering-place opens to the rear upon the close pen, the cattle yards and sheds; and in front is the loading-shed, where the meat is put into the waggons. The cool-rooms are 12 feet 6 inches high. The slaughtering-places have the whole height of the building up into the roof, and are lighted by windows above the roofs of the sheds. By means of pulleys and shafting from the rendering-house the cattle are hoisted for dressing, and the ice is lifted to the ice-chambers. Hot and cold water is supplied to each slaughter-house. The basement story under the slaughter-houses is of brick walls, with a concrete floor, and has ample drainage. It extends, without partition, 380 feet from one end of the block to the other. In this

story, under the trap-doors, are the iron tanks (on wheels) to receive the hides, heads, feet, tallow, tripe, blood, and offal. When filled, the tanks are wheeled into the rendering-house and their contents distributed the hides being left in the basement, and the blood and offal taken to the rendering-tanks and driers by means of elevators.

The sheep slaughter-houses are similarly arranged with cool-room, slaughtering-place, &c.

The rendering-house, which forms the centre of the whole group of the abattoir, is 200 feet by 80 feet, and four stories high, including a brick basement, which has a concrete floor like the basements of the slaughter-houses. The accompanying section drawings (fig. 97) show the rendering-tanks in the third story suspended from the fourth floor. These tanks open at the top, on the level of the floor of the fourth story, where the offal is emptied into them from the small "tanks on wheels" coming from the slaughter

houses.

After the rendering-tanks are filled, the openings are closed and the contents cooked by steam. After sufficient cooking, the contents are dropped out of the tanks by openings at the bottom of them in the third story. Here the fat is separated from the watery part, and from the scrap or tankings, which latter portion is put into the driers. The blood from the slaughter-houses is also here put into the driers. The water is evaporated by steam-heat, and the residuum comes out as dry animal matter. This is passed through a mill and ground to powder. From the mill the powder drops into barrels, and is packed for market.

By an ingenious system of pipes the steam and offensive gases from the rendering - tanks and driers are passed through a condensing apparatus, where the steam becomes water, and the remaining gases are then mixed with common air, and, by means of a blower, are forced down and under the fires of the steam-boilers. After being thus purified by fire they are finally discharged through a chimney 160 feet high. The rendering process thus conducted gives no odour. There is nothing offensive about the fertiliser, and what slight odour it possesses is wholly imperceptible after it is packed.

The boiler and engine house, of brick, stand quite near the rendering-house, and around the central smoke-flue are constructed four large flues or shafts for ventilating the various rooms of the renderinghouse. The boiler-house is planned for ten boilers; the engine-room for two fifty-horse-power engines. There is also a powerful steam-pump for throwing

water.

The six months which have passed since the abattoir was opened have fully proved, that it is possible to carry on a great slaughtering and rendering establishment without its being offensive either to the workmen in it or to the community around it.

For the purposes of the Public Health (England) Act, 1875, the word "slaughterhouse" includes the buildings and places commonly called slaughter-houses and knackers' yards, and any building or place used for slaughtering cattle, horses, or animals of any description for sale.

Any urban authority may, if they think fit, provide slaughter-houses, and they are to make bylaws with respect to the management and charges for the use of any slaughterhouses 'so provided; and for the purpose of enabling any urban authority to regulate slaughter-houses within their district, the provisions of the Towns Improvement Clauses Act, 1847, with respect to slaughter-houses are incorporated with the Public Health Act.

But the rights, powers, and privileges of any persons under any local Act passed before the Public Health Act, 1848, with regard to the working, &c., of slaughter-houses, are not to be affected.-(P. H., s. 169.)

The owner or occupier of any slaughterhouse licensed or registered under the Public Health Act, must within one month after the licensing or registration of the premises, affix,

and keep undefaced and legible on some conspicuous place on the premises, a notice with the words "Licensed slaughter-house," or "Registered slaughter-house," as the case may be.

Any person who makes default in this respect, or neglects or refuses to affix or renew such notice after requisition in writing from the urban authority, is liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds for every such offence, and of ten shillings for every day during which such offence continues after conviction.-(P. H., s. 170.)

There are special Acts applying to the metropolis with regard to the slaughtering of cattle. New slaughter-houses cannot be established without the sanction of the local authority; they are to be regulated by bylaws, and to be duly licensed (37 & 38 Vict. c. 37, &c.) See FOOD, MEAT, &c.

Slops By slop-water is usually meant the ordinary liquid refuse of a household, excluding fæcal matter. Ordinarily speaking, it is composed of urine, soapy matters, fatty substances, and various organic matters in suspension and solution: it is indeed undoubted sewage, but although it is actually sewage, there appears a doubt whether in a legal sense it comes under that name; for the legal advisers of the Local Government Board, basing their opinion upon the case of Kindersley, V. C., in Sutton v. Mayor of Norwich, 31 L. T. 380, state that "it appears to them that mere slop-water, without fæcal matter, is not sewage within the strict meaning of that term." -(Letter from the Local Government Board to Dr. Cornelius Fox, Public Health, No. 28, vol. ii.)

The letter even goes the length of stating

that the Local Government Board would not consider "it illegal under ordinary circumstances to convey slop water into a canal communicating with a river, or with the sea, if the volume of the slop-water is but small as compared with that of the water in the canal;" and further, that "it might not be illegal to convey the slop-water, whether deodorised or not, into a watercourse, but in such a case there might be a breach of private rights."-(Op. cit.)

There can be little doubt that to act upon this opinion would cause great danger to the public health, for allowing that it is possible to be sure that the slop-water contains no fæcal matter, there is no evidence to show but that the urine may propagate disease-c.g., every person suffering from scarlet fever casts off from his kidneys thousands of epithelial cells, which in all human probability are capable of conveying contagion.

Putting, then, on one side, the question of pouring slops into watercourses and canals, there are several ways of dealing with them. (1) In places where there is a system of properly-flushed sewers, the slops are naturally thrown into the drains and go with the sewage; but where there is a dry system of disposal, and no drains, this cannot be done, and other means must be adopted, one of the best of which is (2) to have a Roger Field's tank (see SEWAGE, TANKS, &c.) and pipes leading from thence into a field, beneath the soil. But this of course can only be done under certain circumstances, for there are cases in which both of the foregoing remedies are impossible: in such cases, either (3) a properly-constructed tank must be made, or some simple apparatus constructed, like Dr. Bond's slop-tub, and the slops deodorised.

Dr. Bond's slop-tub is a common wooden barrel of from 40 to 60 gallons capacity. On the top of the barrel is a loose metallic sieve to prevent superfluous solids-such as scrubbing-brushes, potato-peelings, &c.—from finding their way into the barrel. At the bottom of the sieve is a conical receiver for collecting the precipitate, with a vent-hole for running it off. A floating strainer attached to an indiarubber tube, which communicates with a tap placed at the lower portion of the barrel, completes the apparatus. To use it, some disinfectant-such as a mixture of ferrous and aluminic sulphates-is added from time to time, and the tub allowed to get full. When full it must stand a little time, and then a perfectly clear liquid can be drawn off, leaving a fatty sediment, which if mixed with meal is said to be a good food for pigs. Dr. Bond, however, very wisely does not recommend urine to be mixed with ordinary slops, but treated separately, or, after being first acidified, thrown into some suitable place.

It is difficult to imagine places so situated as not to allow one of the three methods of

slop disposal given to be adopted.

Smallpox (Variola) – Smallpox is an infectious fever, attended with a marked and peculiar eruption.

History.-Without doubt, smallpox is one of the most ancient, as it is one of the most frightful diseases which ever afflicted humanity. Ancient Chinese and Brahmin manuscripts 3366 years old are said to refer distinctly to epidemics of smallpox. The Chinese call it the "bean disease," and trace it to the reign of the first emperor of the (Eastern) Han dynasty, Kwang Wu, who reigned A.D. 25-28. It is said to have been imported from some portion of Central Asia, or from some part of South-Western China, by