Seeing that the condition of affairs is such as I have detailed; seeing that the Admiralty Committee made the following wise remarks: “However humane and scientific in theory may be the methods of slaughter, it is inevitable that abuses and cruelty may result in practice, unless there is a proper system of official inspection”; and: “In the interests not only of humanity, but of sanitation, order, and ultimate economy, it is highly desirable that, where circumstances permit, private slaughter-houses should be replaced by public abattoirs, and that no killing should be permitted except in the latter under official supervision”; seeing the enormous dimensions of this matter, and that our methods are behind those of nearly every Continental country, and very much behind those of Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany, it would occur to the simple mind that here was eminently a case for broad and sweeping action on the part of the Legislature. I have not even thought it worth while to dwell on the _insanitary_ aspect of the present system, because the Royal Commission on Food from Tuberculous Animals (again at a considerable expenditure of public money) reported thus—“The actual amount of tuberculous disease among certain classes of food animals is so large as to afford to man frequent occasions for contracting tuberculous disease through his food. We think it probable that an appreciable part of the tuberculosis that affects man is obtained through his food”—practically without effect! If the public likes to spend its money on ascertaining a risk to itself and likes to disregard that risk to itself when ascertained, far be it from me to gainsay the public. But if any one be interested in the sanitary side of our want of system, let him go to the superintendent of some large public slaughter-house and ask what percentage of meat is condemned daily; then let him ask some medical officer of health how far it is possible to inspect the condition of carcases in _private_ slaughter-houses; and then let him go home and think! There I leave the matter. For, frankly, it is not this, but the disregard by the public of needless suffering inflicted on helpless creatures, bred and killed for its own advantage, that moves me. Surely no one can call the following suggestions unreasonable: _No animal to be bled before being stunned (or otherwise rendered instantaneously insensible)._ _No animal to be slaughtered in sight of another animal._ _No slaughter-refuse and blood to be allowed within sight or smell of an animal awaiting slaughter._ _No stunning or slaughtering implement to be used that has not been approved by the Local Government Board._ _The licence of no slaughter-house to be renewed unless it possesses these approved stunning and slaughtering implements, a copy of official instructions how to use them, and can prove that it does use them and them alone._