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178
removal." But it is manifestly desirable that the matter
should be put upon a different footing; and that, in the
interests of public health, it should be made the duty of
the sanitary authority to remove offensive refuse, at the reasonable
cost of the producer, as recommended in the annual
report for 1887.
Under the existing bye-law (1) offensive matter, such
as the refuse of the trades of fishmonger, game dealer, etc.,
is required to be removed in a "suitable carriage or vessel
properly constructed," and covered "so as to prevent the
escape" of any of the contained matter, and "so as to prevent
any nuisance arising therefrom;" the hours prescribed for
removal being from 4 to 10 a.m. in summer, and from 6 a.m.
to noon in winter. The offal of these trades is, at present,
generally, if not always, conveyed through the streets, in
tank-vans, the use of which involves more or less nuisance,
both when the contents of the shop receptacles are tipped
into the tank, and in the transit of the van through the
streets. Given properly covered, clean, and sound metal
storage receptacles, no nuisance should arise at whatever
time of day their removal may be effected, and on sanitary
grounds merely there need be no limitation of time for
removal. Existing arrangements, apart from the question,
of nuisance, entail disagreeable consequences to contractors,
who, to escape prosecution for breach of bye-law in London,
become liable to prosecution for breach of bye-law, say, at
West Ham. Offensive matter may not be removed through
streets in London excepting in the forenoon. Such matter
may not be removed through streets at West Ham save in the
evening. Could anything be more unfair than the position in
which the contractors are thus placed? between the upper
millstone of the County Council's bye-law, and the nether
millstone of the bye-law made by the Council of West Ham
—a locality to which much of London's "offensive matter,"
i.e., offal, is conveyed for transmutation to useful products.