Dear Sir,—The Metropolitan Association of Medical Officers of Health have brought under the consideration of this Vestry the desirability of extending to the cow houses within the Metropolis, the system of annual licenses, as it prevails with regard to slaughter houses, and they have directed me to acquaint you, for the information of the Metropolitan Board of Works, that if a proposal is made to provide for such an extension of the law, in their forthcoming amendment Bill, this Vestry, upon the recommendation of their Medical Officer of Health, will give such proposal their cordial support. I beg to send you a copy of the Report of Dr. Barclay, our Medical Officer of Health, above alluded to. I have the honor to be, dear Sir, Your obedient Servant, CHAS. LAHEE, Vestry Clerk. J. Pollard, Esq., 1, Greek Street, Soho. * * * * * _Extract from the Report of the Medical Officer of Health to the Vestry of the Parish of Chelsea_. 22nd November, 1859. At your last meeting I was requested to report upon a suggestion made to this Vestry by the Metropolitan Association of Medical Officers of Health, to the effect that you should unite with other vestries in the endeavour “to procure insertion in the proposed bill for amending the Metropolis Local Management Act, of a clause relating to the annual licensing of Cow Houses.” I was also requested to consider the propriety of extending the system of licensing to the keeping of pigs. With reference to these two questions, I have to observe, that the grounds upon which such a proposition rests are mainly two; viz.:, the _necessity for_ such a business being carried on where it now is, and the probability that such a business may, if carelessly conducted, be a nuisance to the neighbourhood. For by the very fact of the license being granted, the option of endeavouring to remove the cause of nuisance altogether is entirely given up. This authority is accorded to the magistrate, by the Nuisances Removal Act, but is very rarely exercised in cases brought before the Metropolitan Police Courts, because it has generally been held that its powers were not intended to be used for the suppression, but only for the regulation of offensive trades.