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house, and no other possible source of nuisance within reach of it.
The character and material of the trade utensils should be specified.
If machine-made bread requires metal vessels for mixing—
the manufacture of aerated bread may be cited as an illustration—
for hand-made bread there ought to be no difficulty in providing
troughs of galvanized iron or porcelain, which could be cleansed
without difficulty.
To sum up:—What really is required is a proper "Bakehouse
Regulation Act," providing for the licensing of bakehouses and
conferring on sanitary authorities the power, which they should
be obliged to exercise, of regulating the trade by bye-laws uniform
for the Metropolis dealing with (1) the position and construction,
including lighting and ventilation, of bakehouses; (2) the periodical
cleansing of them; and (3) the materials and utensils employed
in the manufacture of bread.
HOUSE REFUSE.
The collection of ashes, and miscellaneous refuse from upwards
of 20,000 houses, in an area of more than 2,000 acres, and to
the extent of 30,000 loads in a single year, is no light
task, and complaints of neglect on the part of the dustmen were
habitual when the work was carried out under the contract system.
So frequent, indeed, did complaints become at last, that a desire
to satisfy the legitimate requirements of the parishioners had its
influence in determining your Vestry, in 1877, to abolish the contract
system altogether, and undertake the collection with an ample
staff' and plant. The result has justified the change: the work
has ever since been done in an increasingly satisfactory manner ;
complaints are now rare, and even applications for removal of the
dust are comparatively few in number. Oftentimes, moreover,
when the dustmen, or your Vestry, have been censured for alleged
neglect, it has turned out on enquiry that the domestic servants
were to blame: the hour of the dustman's call was "inconvenient";
or "the steps had just been cleaned"; such excuses, or others,
equally valid from a servant's point of view, being deemed sufficient
justification for the perpetuation of a nuisance. And nuisance, it
may be averred, arises almost solely from the improper use of the
receptacle by the deposit therein of animal and vegetable refuse;
of which it may be said that the former has an appreciable value,