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17
I may add that, in company with Mr. Collingwood, I moat
carefully examined the road on the day previous to the visit of the
Committee, and upon that occasion there was no such smell or any
smell whatsoever discoverable. I mention the existence of the
smell on this one occasion, and the visit of the Committee, as a
coincidence worthy of note. The Committee should not confuse
certain smells in the road due, I know, to soapsuds, with smells
supposed to arise from the mud itself. I did, in several places
pointed out to me by one or other of the numerous visitors who
seemed specially interested in our visit, notice certain smells, but
these, I knew, were not smells due to the mud, but were entirely
due to the soap and soapsuds that had been thrown upon the
road.
There can be no second question that the road is a great eyesore
and, in the popular sense of the word, a great nuisance. Such
a state of things should not for one moment be allowed, in my
opinion, to exist. The road is simply deplorable and impassable,
and traffic should, if possible, be prohibited until the road has been
made. But in the sense of a nuisance injurious to health, as
defined by " The Nuisances Removal Acts,'' under which you, as
a nuisance authority, act, it is my duty to advise you that I do not
consider it such a nuisance. Only upon one occasion was any
smell discoverable, and at but one point. If I were to recommend
the Committee to take proceedings upon every occasion when I
could detect a stink, sanitary work would itself be a public
nuisance, and your Committee would frequently have longer lists
of sanitary nuisances to deal with, than at the present time are
your lists of dusting neglect.
I am unable to trace any case of fever whatsoever to the
state of the road. All the cases I have heard of are scarlet fever,
occurring not actually in the Upper Cottenham Road itself, but
in several houses in the Hanley Road West, the road adjoining.
Moreover, most of these cases occurred in November last when the
Committee visited the road, or at an earlier period when the road
was in a better state than it is at present, and when a severe
epidemic of scarlet fever was in progress.
Lastly, it is my duty to refer to what was said upon a previous
occasion by the spokesman of the deputation that waited on your
Committee, respecting the state of the road, and when remarks were