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104
becoming empty, does not prevent the use of them for the
purposes of a bakehouse, however unsuitable in character they
may be, upon the premises being re-occupied. A drafting
amendment of the terms of the section is necessary to give
effect to what may be assumed to have been the intention of
the legislature, viz., that underground bakehouses vacant on,
or vacated at any time after, January 1st, 189G, should not be
again used for the purposes of the business.
OFFENSIVE SMELLS IN STREETS.
In the ninth report I dealt with this subject, to which
attention is usually directed when the hot weather sets in,
owing to complaints by inhabitants of bad smells proceeding
from untrapped gullies and sewer ventilating openings at the
level of the roadway. Cause for complaint is not confined
to the sewers under local jurisdiction ; for, as might naturally
be expected, the large main sewers under the control of the
County Council often emit exhalations offensive in a high
degree. By direction of the Sanitary Committee, I had, in
July, called the attention of the County Council to complaints
of persons resident in Holland-road and Warwick-road, the
result being that the ventilating openings which formed the
subject of complaint were closed at the beginning of August.
The Council's Engineer attributed the smells emanating from
certain gullies complained of, in Portobello-road, to offensive
matter in the catch-pits, the pipes therefrom being flap-trapped
at the outlet in the sewer. But although such accumulations
may be a cause of nuisance, especially if the gullies are not
cleansed with sufficient frequency, it is beyond question that the
main cause for complaint arises in, and proceeds from, the
sewers, in the form of offensive gases, and that the flap-trap is incompetent
for preventing nuisance from this cause. The
subject, as it affected the Council's sewers, had been before the
Sanitary Committee in July, and it was resolved to request
the Law and Parliamentary Committee to advise as to the
position of the Vestry in regard to the matter generally.