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Fried-Fish Shop Business.—In connection with proposed amendments to the Public
Health (London) Act, 1891, elsewhere mentioned (page 83), the Sanitary Committee of the
late Yestry, in a special report, expressed the opinion that the business of a fried-fish seller
should be added to the list of the businesses specified in section 19, in order to the regulation
of the conduct of the business, so as to prevent it from being an annoyance to adjoining occupiers.
The business gives rise to nuisance when negligently carried on, and without necessary precautions
to prevent the escape of effluvia, and it is a not infrequent subject of complaint:
decided cases, moreover, class it as an "offensive business." One of the latest of such cases,
Duke of Devonshire v. Brookshaw, was tried, in 1899, in the Chancery Division, by Mr. Justice
Kvekewich; the plaintiff claiming an injunction to restrain the defendant from carrying on, at
Eastbourne, the business of a fried-fish seller, or using the house for the business of a friedfish
seller, in breach of a covenant not to carry on any offensive trade or business on the premises.
The business, it appeared, had been carried on since 1887, and in 1892 the Corporation took
proceedings, but discontinued them on certain alterations to the premises being made. The
defendant relied on laches and acquiescence on behalf of the plaintiff; but the judge decided
that there had been a breach of the covenant, in the original conveyance, not to carry on an
offensive trade or business, and granted an injunction.
Marine Stores.—The business of a marine store dealer is not scheduled in the Public
Health (London) Act, 1891, as an "offensive business," but it gives rise to offensive smells, and
it has been held by the Appeal Court to be ejusdem generis with the businesses scheduled,
originally, in the (now repealed) Slaughter-houses (Metropolis) Act, 1874. Acting upon my
advice, the late Vestry made application to the late Metropolitan Board of Works, in 1883 and
subsequently, to schedule the business under that Act, but without success. And in 1896, upon
receipt of complaints of nuisance arising in the conduct of the business, an application was
made to the County Council to schedule the business under the provisions of section 19 of the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891. This application, likewise, was unsuccessful. The subject
was dealt with fully in my annual report for 1896—pages 119-123. I have only to add that the
premises where the business is carried on are kept under observation by the sanitary inspectors.
REFUSE MATTER.
The prevention of nuisance in connection with the storage, collection, and conveyance
through streets of offensive substances coming under the general description, Refuse, which was
formerly a matter of no little difficulty, has been facilitated by the County Council's by-laws
made in 1893, under the provisions of section 16 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. But
in order to prevent nuisance in the conveyance of offensive matter through streets, supervision
is necessary; and as the police have constant opportunities for observing breaches of the by-laws,
it appeared to the Public Health Committee of the County Council that good might be effected
were they instructed to take note of offences, and to give information to the sanitary authority
of the district. The Committee communicated their views to the Commissioner, who thereupon
issued an instruction to the police to report to the sanitary authority any breach of the by-laws,
and this is occasionally done.
House Refuse.—The work of collection of ashes and miscellaneous rubbish from the
23,000 inhabited houses, has been systematised by division of the borough into districts, and
provision has been made for inspection of dust-bins, and oversight of the dusting-gangs, the
arrangements being under the supervision of the Borough Engineer. A call is made at every
house once a week, and further improvement is scarcely possible, until the objectionable practice
of refuse-harbourage shall have given place to the more rational system of daily collection from
movable receptacles. Nuisance from house refuse does not arise from the proper contents of the
receptacle—ashes—but from the addition thereto of matters of organic origin. With the object
of preventing nuisance from this cause, a printed notice was periodically issued by the late
Vestry to every householder, calling attention to the danger to public health arising from the
deposit of vegetable and other objectionable refuse in the dust-bin, and requesting that all such
refuse should be burned. A portion of the refuse, from the northern part of the borough, is
conveyed out of London on the Grand Junction Canal, the refuse from the southern district
being taken down the Thames; but not. to the Council's Purfleet depot, which lies below highwater
mark, and is let to a contractor for the deposit of other matter of a presumably less
objectionable sort. The time when the refuse will be cremated at the Council's land at Woodlane,
Hammersmith, would appear to be at hand.
Defective Ash-pits.—The Public Health Committee, at my suggestion, last year requested
the Works Committee that information might be given to the Public Health department whenever
the inspectors of the dusting gangs should come across defective dustbins, and where no ash-pit
was found. A large number of such cases has since been reported, and the necessary proceedings
taken for the provision or repair of receptacles.