3-017-162 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Foreign cattle on board the Batavier, London and Rotterdam steamer, 1865. 'The importation of foreign bullocks and sheep for the immense consumption of London has lately been a subject of so much discussion, and the spread of the cattle disease has occasioned so much anxiety as to the condition in which they are brought to our market, that we have thought it opportune to give...Illustrations of the manner in which this trade is carried on in the Thames...the greater portion of the cattle imported for the London market are disembarked at three London wharves... Of the thirty London ships in the trade, many are passenger steamers, which bring over a few beasts on their decks besides the general cargo. Of this class is the Batavier, belonging to the Netherlands Steam-boat Company...Every beast is examined as it comes on shore by veterinary surgeons appointed by the Board of Trade, who...are never known to spare a bullock who is any way diseased. A slaughter-house is attached to each wharf, and the condemned animals are killed without leaving the premises. The foreign cattle are again inspected as they enter the Metropolitan Market, in the Caledonian-road, Islington, where they pass into the hands of the butchers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.