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57
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 bye-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 bye-laws, it appeared to
the Public Health Committee of the Council that it would be useful if they were 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 authorities any breach of the bye-laws, and this is sometimes done.
House Refuse.—The work of collection of ashes and miscellaneous rubbish from the 23,000
inhabited houses, ha3 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 directions might be given for all such refuse to 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 part of the borough being taken, by the
contractor, down the Thames; but not to the Council's Purfleet depot, which lies below high-water
mark, and is let to the contractor for the deposit of other matter of a presumably less objectionable
sort. The time will probably come when the refuse will be cremated in or near the borough, and the
heat thus generated be employed for the production of " current" for the illumination of the streets
by electricity—a practice which has already been adopted with success in other districts. The
Council possess a site at Wood-lane, Hammersmith, where, it would seem, a " destructor" and an
electric-light installation might be advantageously located.
Stable Refuse.—In former reports I had to note the frequency of complaints of effluvium
nuisance arising in the storage, and especially in the removal of stable refuse from pits underground.
Thanks to the operation of the County Council's bye-law, which has been carried out effectually in
this borough, complaints in respect to private premises are now relatively few in number; and as a
principal cause for comp'aint, the sunken dung-pit, is almost a thing of the past, we may reasonably
hope to have little cause for annoyance on this score in the future. The subject was fully dealt
with in my annual report for 1894 (pp. 184—189), to which I would refer anyone desirous of
knowing what a serious difficulty the question involved, until we were able, generally, to abolish
the brick receptacle, above or below ground, and to substitute the iron cage now so familiar an
object in the mews in this borough, not far short of two hundred in number.

Sunken pits were allowed to remain in certain instances simply because, owing to the
construction of the stable premises — the entire frontage being occupied by doors—it was impracticable
to provide any other form of receptacle. In each such case the pit was reconstructed to a reduced
depth (the sides and floor being cemented) and drained to the sewer.
A few complaints having been received in the summer of effluvia from peat stable refuse, the
sanitary committee of the late Vestry reissued the regulations relating to the periodical removal of
manure, &c., and a copy, in bill form and bold type, was posted in ever}' mews. These regulations,
require removal three times in each week, viz., on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or on Tuesday,
Thursday, and Saturday. Discretion is used, the regulation being strictly enforced only in cases
where such frequency of removal is necessary on sanitary grounds. Where straw is used as litter,
the refuse being stored in an iron cage receptacle, the quantity moreover, being small, it is not
necessary to insist on such frequent removal.