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209
[1903
During the year 230 visits were paid to the manure depots and mews that
were known to produce it in large quantities, besides many visits to smaller
stables.
Regents Canal.—No complaints reached the Public Health Department
respecting a nuisance caused from the Canal as it flows through Islington.
This has not been the case hitherto, for generally there have been some
complaints received. No doubt the freedom from nuisance has been due
to the cool summer that was experienced, and not to any particular care on
the part of the Canal Company, who usually have been charged with a too
sparing renewal of water in the water way. The canal has been subjected to
close examination and on several occasions the Medical Officer of Health
visited it with a view of satisfying himself as to its condition. It is much to be
desired that the canal authorities should prevent boys bathing in it as it
passes through the borough in the neighbourhood of the bridge at Caledonian
Road.
Offensive Trades. These establishments are only 7 in number and
comprise 3 tripe dressers, 2 gut scrapers, 1 tallow melter, and 1 knacker's
yard, and were visited on 220 occasions during the year by Inspector Wilkinson,
whose duty it is to supervise them; they were also visited on various occasions
by the Chief Inspector, both of whom report that they have been kept in
a favourable state. The knacker's yard, however, still emits effluvium, but the
London County Council have decided that extensive structural alterations
must be carried out in the near future if the licence is to be retained.
Smoke Nuisances.—The most fertile source of the pollution of the
atmosphere of towns, especially of manufacturing towns, is the smoke given
off from the chimneys of the various factories and workshops. This kind of
nuisance is very difficult to deal with, because of the sympathy so often, and
so undeservedly, extended to manufacturers by Sanitary Authorities on the plea
that to prevent it is to drive trade from the district, because factories, they
say, cannot be conducted without the creation of smoke nuisances. Such talk
as this is nonsense, because furnaces can be, and as a matter of fact thousands
are, stoked in such a manner that no black smoke, or indeed medium smoke, or
even faint smoke is ever emitted from the chimneys, unless it be at the time of
lighting up. It is not unreasonable to presume that what some firms can do