5. It should be well drained, with stone ware pipes, and the drains should be permanently trapped. 6. It should have attached to it ample and separate lairage, constructed with a due regard to sanitary and other requirements. 7. It should be effectually separated from any lair, stable, dung-pit, w.c., &c., so that the meat may not be exposed to any offensive effluvia. 8. It should be of adequate size, and should not be used for any other purpose than that for which it is licensed, and particularly it should not be used as a stable, a lair, or a cow-shed. Upon viewing the several slaughter-houses by this standard, so many were found defective in one or other respect that it was thought best to give the formal notice of opposition required by the Act, in every case, but your Clerk and myself were directed to oppose the renewal of the license in those cases only that did not come up to the standard. We did this, but the justices overruled our objection in every case, on the ground that the premises, however faulty, had been licensed in former years, and time must be allowed to put them in proper order. At the same time, the justices gave the assembled licensees notice that at the next licensing day (in October of the current year, namely) they would not renew the license in any case that was not up to the standard. With reference to the decision of the magistrates, and the ground on which it was based, it is, perhaps, hardly necessary for me to state the fact, so well known already, that the existing slaughter-houses, were, without exception, licensed before I entered upon the duties of my appointment, and that the reason your Vestry did not oppose the renewal of the licenses in either of the subsequent years was that, in common with myself, you believed that the private slaughter-houses would be finally closed in 1874, under the operation of the Building Act, 1844. It only remains to add that the slaughter-houses will now have to be judged by the standard of the bye-laws; and it may therefore be useful to state in what respect the bye-laws differ—either in excess or defect—from the standard adopted by your Vestry in 1874. As regards new slaughter-houses, the requirements of the “local authority” are fully up to that standard; and, as regards existing slaughter-houses, the only material differences between the bye-laws and the standard relate to the points dealt with in clauses 1 and 6 (_supra_). The bye-laws do _not_ require that a slaughter-house shall have an independent entrance, or be at all removed from other buildings; and they do _not_ require provision to be made for housing cattle previous to slaughtering; but it is enacted that no animal shall be detained on the “premises” for a longer time than “absolutely necessary” previous to slaughtering, and that the “slaughter-house” (which is only a part of the “premises”) shall not be used for “any other