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the strike of coal miners, but as usual there was careless stoking and
occasionally burning of articles like wet sawdust, rags and hospital
dressings in the furnaces.
The premises causing this class of nuisance included:—
Hotels and restaurants 25
Bakers 4
Motor works 1
Government buildings 2
Clubs 14
Brewery 1
Private houses 6
Hospitals 3
Printer 1
Electric Light works 1
Theatre 1
Various 8
Most of these were seen offending once only, but several had more
than one notice, the maximum being seven. Statutory notices were
served in respect of 8 premises, in 6 of them notices were served on the
stoker as well as on the occupier.
In three cases complaint was made of smoke entering rooms from
adjoining chimneys, due to the chimney being too low.
Notices were served with reference to smoke being emitted from
3 travelling engines, 2 crane engines, a stove for boiling tar, and a pail
in the street, in which paving repairers were burning material, causing
offensive smoke.
Two notices were also served with respect to chimneys outside
Westminster from which black smoke was blowing into the City, and
the attention of the Port Sanitary Authority was called to a number
of vessels emitting smoke on the Thames.
Offensive Smells.—Complaints were received in a number of instances
of offensive smells entering premises. It is not always easy to discover the
source of such smells, for example, complaints were received from
residents in several streets in Mayfair of a sulphurous smell which invaded
the houses ; it was only after a careful examination of the neighbourhood,
extending over two weeks, that the source was discovered in a club, and
that it was due to the steam exhaust being taken into the chimney
shaft at a wrong point. In another case, smells were caused by the
improper use of the forced draught in a patent smoke preventing
apparatus. In other cases, offensive smells were due to the burning of
the rubber of dental fixtures in a gold refining establishment, to the
damping of clinkers, to inlet ventilators being fixed in improper
positions, such as close to outlet shafts from kitchens or lavatories, to
gullies taking sink waste pipes, to exhaust shafts from kitchens,
poulterers' shops, &c., discharging near windows.
Serious complaint was made of large quantities of grit and fine ash
falling on premises in the neighbourhood of a large shaft; this was
eventually remedied by building a brick baffler in the flue, and by
frequent removal of the ash from the base of the chimney shaft.