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The Vestry exercise the power of preventing householders
from disposing of this refuse themselves, and upon them,
therefore, devolves the duty of insuring its removal at times
and in a manner which shall insure that no nuisance shall be
created.
Whatever course the Yestry may in the future adopt as to
the mode of dealing with house refuse after its removal from
the house, the removal is a duty which should be retained in
their own hands.
Moreover, the removal should take place at frequent and
regular intervals, and ought not to depend upon the chance
of the dustman's cry being heard, but every house should be
called at in turn.
No system can be worse than the present one, which
tempts the contractor to make the removal of house refuse
depend upon its commercial value.
Whatever the opportunities for its eventual utilization may
be, its removal should be independent of such considerations.
That under the present system this cannot be the case—there
has of late years been abundant evidence before the Vestry.
I would beg to call the attention of the Yestry to a report
on this and kindred subjects recently issued by the Society of
Medical Officers of Health. The other subjects to which I
refer are those of trade, stable, and cow-shed refuse.
The Vestry are at the present time liable to be called upon
by any tradesman to collect trade refuse, animal and vegetable,
and remove it from the premises; they ought equally
to have it in their power to take possession of such refuse
without being called upon, should the owner be unable or
unwilling to dispose of it before it is likely to become a
nuisance, and they should be entitled to charge a small fee
for doing so.
It is, however, especially to the third point, the collection
of stable and cow-shed manure, I would desire to call the
attention of the Vestry.
The difficulties of enforcing the regular removal of this
material is gradually increasing, and complaints are constantly
made to the Sanitary Department on the one hand by
people who are offended by the close proximity of unemptied
dung-pits to their houses, and on the other hand by the