Horseflesh
The unpleasant trade in horseflesh which was so exhaustively recorded by the Aland/ester Guardian last year shocked the Civil Service and Parliament into quick action. The details of the cruel trade are repeated—with less sentiment and fewer bloodstains—in the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Slaughter of Horses now published by the Stationery Office, The committee was to consider what goes on in slaughterhouses and knackers' yards and to find out what ought to be done to make sure that horses meet a decent end. The dreary business of horse-eating—encouraged by scarcity of meat— reached a peak in 1948, when 86,000 animals were slaughtered, all too many of them to provide restaurants with meat which was rarely described accurately on the menu. Last year the number was 62,000; in 1938 it was 17,000. The trade will die out only when there is enough real meat available, but in the meantime the committee makes twenty-three recom-, mendations which would help to make the business less repulsive. Among the important ones are these : that there should be a new type of. licence for horse-slaughterers who sell the meat for human consumption; that lairage and feeding should be improved; that a horse should not be slaughtered in the sight of another; and that horses should be killed before they are taken to knackers' yards. ' The committee found no direct evidence of cruelty in the methods of slaughter used— it is the last hours of the animals which are a disgrace, and may now be improved.
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