Your visit to Aldgate must have convinced you that the premises of these Slaughter-houses generally are too small for the enormous amount of business done in them, and as, owing to the natural increment of the population, this evil must ever be augmenting, it becomes a serious question to determine whether a strong remonstrance should not be addressed by the Commissioners of Sewers to Her Majesty’s Government, or failing this to Parliament, against the continuance of the smaller of these places, or by insisting that slaughtering should only be carried on in houses of such dimensions as would ensure perfect ventilation, and provide the means of carrying on the process with efficiency. In order to perfect your powers, and establish a wholesome check upon the slaughterers, a short Act might be obtained, giving the Commissioners of Sewers authority to issue fresh licences, without which no Slaughter-houses should be allowed to exist. The present licences were issued in 1848, and have not been revised since that time, whereas outside the City they are (as they ought to be) renewed yearly. _In the exercise of this important jurisdiction, the Metropolitan Board of Works have actually abolished 284 Slaughter-houses during the year 1875, having licensed 1,068 Slaughter-houses during the same period._ Respecting the technical means to be adopted to remedy the admitted defects of these Slaughter-houses, your Engineer will advise you; but, without trenching upon the ground of that officer, it must, I think, be patent that nothing short of an entire reconstruction of the side walls and roofs of all of them will satisfy the requirements of scientific sanitation, or ensure that complete _isolation_ of each house, which is _the one essential requisite for carrying on the business of slaughtering with due regard to the public health_. It is therefore a _sine qua non_ that there should be a solid brick partition or side wall between each Slaughter-house, and that the only opening allowed therein should be for a door (where required), on the ground level, and that this wall should extend from the floor to the highest point of the roof. An exception to this may be made in those places in which an open air passage of 4 or 5 ft. wide exists between the side walls of two Slaughter-houses, for here it might be admissible to supplement other means of ventilation and light by glazed sashes, which, however, must be so made as to be readily closed, should, by any accidental circumstance or oversight, a beast affected with any contagious disease be found in the adjoining house.