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gases and small liquid and solid particles carried off from a charge of refuse freshly deposited in the
furnace, and it is clear that in a perfect destructor the temperature attained ought to be such as to
secure complete combustion even of those particles which most rapidly effect their escape to the flue.
It may be moreover that the temperature must reach a certain point to decompose the offensively
smelling compounds, so that it is not safe to argue that 10 seconds exposure to a temperature of
750° Fahr. is equivalent to 5 seconds exposure to a temperature of 1,500° Fahr. In dealing with the
question it is not possible to lay down any hard and fast rule. One cannot say that a furnace cell
should secure a certain minimum time of exposure and a certain minimum average temperature. When,
however, the conditions are such that any portion of refuse must, before reaching the shaft, pass through
the hottest part of the fire, and through a considerable extent of flue lined with glowing brickwork, and
when the temperature of the fire and of the portions of the flue adjoining the cell are raised to such an
extent as can be secured by the use of the steam blast, one cannot fail to be impressed with the fact
that the conditions which then obtain are such as to render it extremely unlikely that any nuisance
should result.
No discussion of the destructor, from the point of view of nuisance production, would be
complete which did not deal with the imperfections of the existing alternative systems of dust disposal.
The processes carried on in a London dust contractor's yard have not undergone much alteration since
the following description of Dr. Ballard was written:—
"On a load of dust being upset from the dust cart upon the surface of the yard some men and
boys proceed to sort it. They are each provided with a fork and an instrument called a 'drag,' which
has a short handle and three cast iron teeth, set about three inches apart, and with these they fork and
drag the heap over, so as to separate from it obvious pieces of vegetable and animal refuse, bones, rags,
paper, iron, crockery, and glass. These are distributed, some of them into heaps, others of them into
baskets; the bones are put into a bin or heap in the yard by themselves for sale to bone boilers. The
rags and paper are also usually set aside for sale ; the iron and old tins are always set aside for sale,
and usually also the glass, while the broken crockery, brickbats, &c., are laid in a heap to be sold as
material for making new roads. What is left consists of cinders, ashes, and little bits of unburnt coal,
and the next process is to sift this. The sifting is performed usually by women, who sit on or close to
the heap, having one or more baskets by their side, and a riddle in their hands. A shovelful from the
heap is shaken in the riddle, and, the ashes and dust having passed through, what remains upon the
riddle is examined, and bones, potatoes, bits of iron, &c., not removed by the first dragging process,
are picked out and thrown each into its appropriate basket; the cinders and coal now remaining on
the riddle are thrown on a separate heap, being then technically known as 'breeze.' The following
are the terms under which the matters of a dust heap are known technically, after they are separated
from one another:— soft core,' i.e., vegetable and animal refuse; 'hard core,' i.e., broken crockery,
brickbats, &c., and sometimes glass, old shoes, bits of rag, &c.; 'breeze' and 'ashes.' "
The sorting process is a degrading occupation. The women employed are often seen covered
almost to the waist with refuse, and they continually inhale into their lungs air polluted by the
surrounding accumulations of dust. From some cause, avoidable or unavoidable, large heaps of
material are almost invariably found in a contractor's yard, and even with the best management a long
continued frost must interfere with the process of removal by barge, upon which London is so largely
dependent. Again, the progress of offensive cargoes on their slow journey down the canal taints the
atmosphere and pollutes the water, and when the destination is ultimately reached, the question of
rendering the material innocuous still remains unanswered. It is true that in many instances the
sorted refuse admits of useful application, but the supply has been so much in excess of the demand of
late years that it not infrequently happens that the bulk of the material commands no price, and the
only question is how to get rid of it. Under these circumstances the natural solution is to shoot it in
some sparsely inhabited district where public opinion is not strong enough to effectually resent its
being deposited.
The method of destruction by fire has in its favour the fact that it implies that the refuse is
rendered innocuous at the depot where the destructor is situated, and in this respect stands in favourable
contrast to any plan which necessitates that the processes of decomposition shall be allowed to
proceed unchecked for an indefinite period.
This merit of the destructor is, however, in a sense the main drawback to its popularity. The
old system enjoys the great advantage that it quickly removes all cause of offence from general view,
and few persons trouble themselves about the railway siding or the canal wharf or the shoot in the
country. The destructor, if it is to establish the claim that it deals with the refuse from the outset,
must be situated near inhabited houses, and its chimney cannot fail to excite attention. Again, if the
destructor causes nuisance, it will mainly affect those living at a considerable distance from it, and
thus it excites the opposition, not of the inhabitants of houses in the poorer districts, which presumably
exist in the neighbourhood of the depot, but of the richer and much more critical population living halfa-mile
or a mile away. It thus happens that while few complaints are received concerning crude
forms of furnace with short chimney shafts such as are found in many dust yards and are used sometimes
merely for burning paper, sometimes for dealing with vegetable refuse and ordinary house dust,
considerable objection is taken to much more perfect appliances provided with lofty chimney shafts.
We have already intimated that in our opinion in the case of such destructors as are now in use
at Kidacre-street (Leeds) and at Oldham there can be no reasonable complaint of nuisance provided due
care is exercised, but we regard it as a matter of great importance that the fact should be recognised
that not every appliance which is dignified with the name of Destructor is equally efficacious. We
have seen not a few so-called Destructors which must inevitably be productive of nuisance.
Under Sec. 22, sub-sec. 2, of the Public Health London Act, 1891, the London County Council is
constituted the sanitary authority for the purposes of the Act with respect to any nuisance arising
on premises used by a sanitary authority for the treatment or disposal of any street or house refuse.
In the event of nuisance being complained of it would be incumbent on the sanitary authority to