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Metropolitan Board of Works in 1883, already alluded to. The Committee
state, correctly, that Sanitary Authorities can now deal with a
part of your Vestry's complaint of 1883, under the Council's bye-laws
regulating the conditions under which offensive matter can be
removed through the streets ; and as to the " question which
remains, whether regulations are required with respect to the
deposit and retention of animal matter in the premises of marine
store dealers," they refer to the power of the Sanitary Authority
to deal with such premises under Section 21 of the Act of 1891,
which provides a remedy in cases of offensive effluvia from trade
processes." The Committee go on to observe that they " are
advised that, as a strict question of law, the Council can, if the Local
Government Board confirm its order, declare the business of a marine
store dealer (if carefully defined), or of a rag and bone merchant, to be
an offensive business within Section 19;" but they "think that the
Council would hesitate to make, and the Local Government Board would
hesitate to confirm an order .... without considerably more
evidence than there seems to be, at present, that an evil exists in London
which cannot be effectually dealt with without such an Older, and
that such an order is therefore necessary in the interests of the public
health." The Committee, therefore, recommended, and the Council
directed, that your Vestry be " informed that the Council feels that the
facts at present within its knowledge would not justify it in making
the order asked for."
' With reference to the 21st Section of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, I may observe that it is the section under which proceedings
were instituted by your vestry (in 1894) against certain brickmakers—
proceedings which occupied many months in furnishing the required
proof that " the best practicable means " had not been adopted, by
the persons complained of, for abating the nuisance, or preventing or
counteracting the effluvia arising in the process of brick-burning.
And with reference to this business, I may add that, so satisfied were
the Council of the difficulty of dealing effectually with the nuisance,
under law comparable with Section 21, that before the Act of 1891
was passed they had made strenuous efforts to bring the trade of a
brickmaker within the terms of section 23 of the Municipal
Corporations Act, 1882, through the operation of section 16 of the
Local Government Act, 1888, so as to enable them to regulate the
conduct of the business by bye-laws which they framed for the
purpose. The Local Government Board, however, refused to confirm
the proposed bye-laws, being, at that time, of the opinion that sanitary
authorities would be able to take proceedings, with effect, under
provisions of an intended law, which now exist in the terms of section
21 of the Public Health (London) Act; a course which was adopted