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In several instances more than one offensive business is carried on at the same premises, hence
the number of premises used for the purpose of these businesses is smaller than the number of such
businesses.

During the year a tripe boiler was prosecuted three times, and a firm of knackers once. Dr.
Dudfield, of Kensington, reports, that, as a result of a previous prosecution, a fat melter gave an undertaking
to discontinue the business during the current year.
Nuisances.
Smoke nuisances.
Reference to action taken for the abatement of smoke nuisance, is made in nearly all the annual
reports. in a few of these reports the statement is made that there was in 1906 less evidence of
smoke nuisance than before. Dr. Collingridge is of opinion that much of the improvement noted in
the case of premises in the City where motive power is required is due to the substitution of electricity
for steam as a generating force; elsewhere, the substitution of the use of coke for coal in laundries
is commented or. In his report relating to the Borough of Chelsea, Dr. Parkes gives account of
unsuccessful proceedings in connection with the emission of black smoke from an electric
generating station at Lots-road. Summonses were dismissed by the magistrate, to whom it was
submitted in defence that the occasional emission of black smoke was not due to any want of reasonable
precautions or care, and that the company's furnaces were constructed on the best-known plan for
preventing smoke. Dr. Parkes writes that, "in support of the legal proposition that so long
as the company is acting within its statutory powers, it is entitled to benefit by proof that
these powers are carried on in the best possible practicable manner, there was put in evidence
the analogous case of the Hammersmith Borough Council v. the Central London Railway,
decided by the Divisional Court on the 6th June, 1901, in which Mr. Justice Bigham laid it down that
all the company had to do was to show that it was carrying out the powers conferred by Parliament
in the best possible practicable manner."
The following table, compiled from information contained in the annual reports, shows the
action taken by sanitary authorities in respect of smoke nuisance during the year.

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* The business at some of these premises was discontinued during the year 1906: as, however, the statutory
period of nine months had not elapsed at the end of the year the entries relating to these premises were not cancelled
in the Council's register.