View report page

57
BAKEHOUSES.
Of the 34 bakehouses in the Borough 5 are underground.
These were licensed under the Factory Act of 1901.
t
SMOKE ABATEMENT.
During the year 1936, factory chimneys have been watched
on 156 occasions, and 68 intimation notices served, besides of course,
the numerous informal observations which are always being kept.
Legally, we can only take action against the owners of factories in
order to prevent the emission of black smoke and grit, but in London,
at any rate, the biggest culprit is the ordinary domestic chimney.
The problem of atmospheric pollution is neither new nor simple,
most of us have read that John Evelyn in 1661 appealed to King
Charles to pass an Act of Parliament that works and furnaces using
sea-coal, should be removed five or six miles distant from London,
below the river Thames. These works fatally infested the air,
and would not be permitted in any other city of Europe. We now
know more of the injurious effects of smoke, and also of better remedies
against coal smoke, and yet, in spite of this, little serious
attempt is made to maintain a pure atmosphere. No-one can be
unaware of the importance of clean air : of all the elements that sustain
life, air is the most important. In round figures, without food
we die in three weeks : without water, in three days, but without
air we die in three minutes. Some people can successfully dodge
the use of drinking-water for a considerable time, and most people
can counteract many of the impurities of food by sterilising it, but
short of wearing masks, all have to breathe the impurities which
may be present in the air.
According to the highest authorities, the smoke problem is
inherently neither difficult nor insoluble. There are no insuperable
difficulties in preventing smoke, but, because we need heat in so
many different places and for so many different purposes, there are
a great many small problems to be tackled, rather than any single,
vast, all-embracing one.
In the case of the factory chimney, it is mainly a question
of expense. In the northern part of our district, we rarely have
complaints of black smoke, but sometimes grit and fumes are emitted
with dire consequences. Shrubs, flowers and grass have
occasionally been ruined in Wesley Playing Field in the vicinity of