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COLLECTION OF HOUSE REFUSE.
I reported on this subject in January, 1895, in connection
with a communication received by your Vestry from the County
Council embodying the views thereon of their Medical Officer
of Health, who naturally insisted on the importance of
systematic removal of house refuse " at least once a week from
all premises." After some introductory observations my report
proceeded as follows:—
" It need hardly be said that a house-to-house 'call,' which is
professedly made in this parish, does not. necessarily, secure this desideratum,
seeing that many persons, for one reason or another, refuse to
have the refuse removed so frequently. It may he well, therefore, to
state what is the law on the subject, as set out in Acts of Parliament,
and in the bye-laws of the Council made thereunder. The sections of
the Metropolis Management Act dealing with this matter were repealed,
by the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, with the exception of section
126 which enacted that ' Any occupier of any house or other
person, who refuses or does not permit any ashes or filth to
be taken away by the scavengers appointed by or contracting with any
Vestry or Board as aforesaid (i.e., in section 125), or who obstructs
the said scavengers in the performance of their duty, shall for every
such offence forfeit and pay a sum not exceeding £5.' The fourth
schedule to the Public Health Act. provided for the repeal of this
section 'as from the coming into operation of any bye-law made for
the like object;'but no bye-law with this object has been made, the
section, however, ceased to be operative under section 142 (4) of the
Public Health Act, 1891, on the 1st January. 1893. It is contended,
however, that indirectly the removal of the refuse can be enforced under
penalty of a fine as prescribed by section 116. In a very large number
of streets in this parish, a list of which I have had prepared, the dustbin
is placed in the front area, or other position accessible to the
dustman, in the great majority of instances, without the necessity of
knocking at the house door (a general consent having once been
obtained), to ask whether the occupier wishes to have the dust removed.
In all such cases there should be no difficulty in giving effect to the
requirement of the seventh (County Council) bye-law, viz., that 'The
Sanitary Authority shall cause to be removed not less frequently than
once in every week, the house refuse produced in all premises within
their district.' It is not probable that many householders would raise
objection to this being done. It is well known that householders
or their servants more commonly, not infrequently decline to avail