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108
OFFENSIVE BUSINESSES.
The only business coming under the statutory description
"offensive," other than that of a slaughterer of cattle,
carried on in this parish, is that of a Fat Extractor, at
Tobin-street, in the Potteries, Notting-dale. The conduct of
this business gives rise to more or less effluvium nuisance,
despite improved arrangements; care on the part of the proprietor
; and supervision by your Vestry's inspector, as well as
by the inspector of the County Council. Not for the first
time, more than ten inhabitants of the locality certified this
business to your Vestry, in May, 1898, to be (in the words of
section 21 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891), "a
nuisance or injurious or dangerous to the health" of themselves
and other "inhabitants of the district." The section
requires that upon receipt of such a certificate, the sanitary
authority shall—
"Make a complaint, and if it appears to the petty sessional court hearing
the complaint, that the trade, business, &c., carried on by the person
complained of is a nuisance, or causes any effluvia which is a nuisance or
injurious or dangerous to the health of the inhabitants of the district, then,
unless it is shown that such person has used the best practicable means
for abating the nuisance, or preventing or counteracting the effluvia,
the person so offending (being the owner or the occupier of the premises,
or being a foreman or other person employed by such owner or occupier)
shall be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds."
Communications were opened up with the County
Council, the local authority under the Act, in regard to this
business, and after much delay proceedings were instituted by
that body, the solicitor to the Council having requested that
the proceedings your Vestry had intimated intention to
take, might be deferred until after the determination of the
Council's summons. The presentation of the case at the West
London police-court was not satisfactory, and no surprise was
felt when, on the third day of the hearing, the presiding magistrate
adjourned the proceedings sine die, making no order as