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of dealing with London manure is being simplified. Difficulty has been felt with regard to the proposal
that as in the case of house refuse, the ownership of manure should be vested in the sanitary authorities
and should be collected and disposed of by them, for the reason that value attaches to manure when
produced on any premises in large quantities. With the substitution of motor for horse vehicles, large
stables in which much manure is produced are disappearing, and there will evidently eventually remain
only the small stables in which the quantity of manure produced is not sufficient to pay the cost of
removal, and for this the intervention of the sanitary authority is especially needed, as the owners have
much difficulty in disposing of it. Frequency of removal is being insisted upon by London sanitary
authorities, as complaints of nuisances from stables are frequently made, especially in hot weather. In
Paddington and Holborn, manure is required to be removed every 48 hours, in Finsbury, seven firms are
under the obligation to remove their manure daily, and in Battersea this obligation is on all owners
of manure. The Public Health Committee of Westminster has asked the Highways Committee to
consider a scheme for the systematic removal of manure by the City Council, and pending settlement
of the scheme arrangements have been made for the assistant engineer to remove, at the cost of the
owners, any small quantities of manure the removal of which the owners have a difficulty in securing.
Comment is made in several of the annual reports on the nuisance caused by the use of peat moss litter.
This nuisance is experienced when the manure is disturbed at the time of removal and the remedy pointed
out is to require the manure, when taken from the stable, to be deposited directly into the vehicle in
which it is removed from the premises, thus obviating the subsequent disturbance which must otherwise
occur.
Removal of House Refuse.
The weekly removal of house refuse from all premises in London which was required by the
by-law of the County Council made in 1893, has led to systematic scavenging in replacement of the
old system in which the dustman perambulated the streets and removed the refuse on the application
of the occupiers of houses. As a result, the number of complaints as to non-removal has greatly
decreased, Dr. Harris stating that in Islington the annual number of complaints has fallen from
upwards of 10,000 in 1901 to 312 in 1905, and Dr. Warry stating that in Hackney the "requests"
were as few as 108. Difficulty is still being experienced owing to the unwillingness of house occupiers
to permit collection, the number of refusals amounting in Hackney to some five or six thousand weekly.
In this matter the sanitary authority has the remedy in its own hands, inasmuch as refusal constitutes
obstruction, for which a penalty can be enforced. Weekly removal, however, must obviously give
place to more frequent removal. The need for this is especially obvious, as the medical officer of health
of Paddington points out, in flats and in houses and tenements where gas fires only are used, and where,
therefore, there is no opportunity for the occupiers to burn vegetable and animal refuse; a bi-weekly
removal is therefore effected in some areas. Thus in Holborn the contractors are now required to remove
house refuse twice a week in the period April to October inclusive, and once a week during the rest of
the year, and in Finsbury in a few streets the collection is daily, and from model buildings is bi-weekly.
In parts of some other districts a daily removal is effected.
A by-law of the London County Council provides that where a sanitary authority arrange for the
daily removal of house refuse, the occupiers may be required to deposit the dust receptacle at such
hour as the sanitary authority may fix on the kerbstone or in a conveniently accessible position on the
premises. In 1905, the Wandsworth Borough Council desired to institute a system of daily collection in
a part of their district and made the requirement that the householders should deposit their receptacles
on the kerbstone or edge of the footpath in front of their premises, no option being given them of depositing
the receptacle in a conveniently accessible position on the premises. This requirement was held
by the magistrate to be beyond the by-law and this opinion was upheld in the High Court. The bylaw,
however, gives considerable facilities to sanitary authorities prepared to collect house refuse daily
and it is much to be hoped that this practice will in course of time be more largely adopted.
Removal of offensive matter.
The removal of offensive trade refuse by the sanitary authority is being continued in Woolwich
and evidently with good results. In Finsbury, refuse from fishmongers' premises is collected by the
sanitary authority in a van especially constructed for the purpose, at a charge from one to two
shillings per week. In Wandsworth, where for a time such matter was collected by the sanitary authority
ths d fficulties of disposal have led the borough council to enter into an arrangement with a contractor
for this purpose, and Dr. Caldwell Smith says that this arrangement has proved satisfactory. In
Greenwich, like arrangements have been made and the following extract from the annual report of
Dr. Annis gives a useful account of the details—
During the year material alterations and considerable improvements have been effected in the method adopted
for the collection of this material. From time to time the question has been under the consideration of the Public
Health Committee, and the suggestion has been made and seriously considered as to whether or not this Council ought
go undertake the collection of this material themselves in order to have it dealt with in as satisfactory a manner as
possible. Up to the present the supporters of the view that the municipality should not undertake this work, but should
require the private firms to carry out this work more satisfactorily have, I am pleased to say, prevailed, and with the
object of having more intimate control over the collection, but without entering upon the business themselves, a contract
has been entered into by the Council with Messrs. Hempleman and Sons, of West Ham, for the collection and
removal of this material in a perfectly inoffensive and entirely satisfactory manner at a fixed charge, the payment being
made by the offal producers themselves direct to Messrs. Hempleman. The method adopted is that one or more metal
drums with lids are left at the premises of each person entering into the scheme, in which they are to place their
offensive material, Messrs. Hempleman's van then calls at frequent, regular, and stated times for these drums, the lid
is securely fastened down upon a rubber seating by means of a strong spring lever, the whole tin and its contents are
lifted bodily into the van and conveyed away unopened ; a clean drum is left at the premises in exchange for each one
removed. Since the adoption of this scheme there have been no complaints whatever as to nuisance occasioned by the
collection of this material, while complaints were of very frequent occurrence previously. Having placed this model
method of collection at the disposal of all makers of offensive refuse in the borough, the Council were then in a position