View report page

111
business on the premises. The business, it appeared, had been carried on since 1887, and in 1892
the Corporation had taken 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 court 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,' though it gives rise to objectionable smells,
and 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in the (now repealed) Slaughter-houses (Metropolis) Act, 1874.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, a similar application was made to
the County Council 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 the annual report
for 1896—pages 119-123. 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. 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 the members of the
force 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.
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 ash-pits, 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.
The arrangements for domestic storage at ' flats' are unsatisfactory, the receptacles being
placed, frequently, in unsuitable positions; and complaints are common. In many instances, the
Works Committee have made arrangements for clearing the receptacles two or three times a week,
and in some cases daily.
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, in which attention was called to the danger to public health arising from the deposit
of vegetable and other objectionable refuse in the ash-pit, request being made 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. The time when the refuse will be cremated at the Council's depot, at Wood Lane,
Hammersmith, would appear to be near at hand.
Defective Ash-pits.—The Public Health Committee, at my suggestion, in 1901, made request
to the Works Committee that information might be given to the Public Health Department whenever
the inspectors of the dusting gangs should discover defective ash-pits, and where no ash-pit
was found. A large number of such cases have been reported, and the necessary proceedings taken
for the provision or repair of receptacles.
Removal of House Refuse.—At a conference of London Sanitary Authorities on streets and
street traffic, held in 1901, one of the resolutions passed was—
" That in the opinion of this conference, house refuse should be removed daily, where practicable."