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Nuisance from stable manure.
There are but few references to the subject of stable manure in the reports for the year 1906.
It is probable that the reduction in the number of horses owing to the replacement of horse vehicles
by motor vehicles is having some effect in reducing nuisances from this cause. Many of the reports state
that notices are issued by the sanitary authorities requiring the removal of manure at frequent intervals,
usually at periods not longer than forty-eight hours, and in some reports it is specifically stated that
this course was adopted. Nuisance from the use of peat moss litter has been less frequent since the
enforcement of the practice of depositing the litter directly in the vehicle in which it is to be removed
at the moment it is taken from the floors of the stables. In proceedings instituted by the Lambeth
Borough Council concerning nuisance from manure, the magistrate adjourned the hearing of the case
with a view to this course being adopted.
Removal of house refuse.
The by-laws of the London County Council made under section 16 of the Public Health (London)
Act require that the house refuse shall be removed from all premises not less frequently than once a
week, and provision is also made for the institution of a daily collection in particular streets and
areas after resolution by the sanitary authority. A system of weekly collection and removal of house
refuse is now well established throughout London, and it is interesting to note that the number of complaints
by householders to sanitary authorities that their refuse had not been removed has been greatly
reduced ; thus in Islington this number has fallen from 10,138 in 1891 to 52 in 1906, and in Hackney
the number of such complaints fell to 58 in 1906 ; on the other hand, the medical officer of health of
Hackney states that in 5,207 instances house occupiers refused to allow their refuse to be removed when
the dust collector called for that purpose. Refusal constitutes obstruction, for which a penalty could
be obtained, and there is little doubt that if this penalty were applied for in a few instances the refusals
would practically cease. Removal more frequently than once a week is by degrees being introduced
into some districts, probably necessitated by the substitution of gas stoves in which combustible refuse
cannot be burnt for those which are heated with coal, and also by the increasing number of houses
built in flats, or as blocks of so-called model dwellings, where storage of large quantities of house refuse
is especially undesirable. In Paddington a second collection in the week is now made in several streets.
In Holbom a collection is made twice a week during the months of April to October, and there is,
moreover, a daily collection in the main thoroughfares. In Westminster, where there is already a
number of streets from which a daily collection is made, this system was in 1906 extended to four more
streets. In Wandsworth there is a collection from flats twice a week. In Finsbury there is a daily
collection in some of the main thoroughfares, and a collection twice a week from model dwellings.
The medical officer of health of Westminster refers to difficulty experienced in that district in
dealing under the Public Health Act with old fixed receptacles in bad positions, improperly constructed
or defective. It was to meet this difficulty that the County Council in 1904 obtained the following
provision in their General Powers Act of that year :—
"Where any person shall have provided in connection with any building in any sanitary
district a movable ashpit conforming with the requirements of any by-law or order
made under any statutory power or authority in that behalf, it shall be lawful for the sanitary
authority of that district, by notice in writing, to require the owner of such building to remove
or fill up any fixed ashpit in or about such building and restore to a good and sanitary