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163
Marine Stores.—Every year, during the hot weather,,
complaints, more or less numerous, are received in regard to
the stenches arising from the collection and storage of fat and
other animal matters in a putrid condition on the premises of
marine store dealers.
The attention of your Vestry having been drawn to the
difficulty of preventing the recurrence of nuisances from this cause
under the Nuisances Removals Acts, it was resolved, in 1888, "that
the attention of the Metropolitan Board of Works he directed to
the serious character of the nuisance caused by the collection of
putrid animal matters at marine stores, and that they be requested
to consider as to the desirability of the business of a 'marine
store dealer,' being declared an 'offensive business' under the
provisions of the Slaughter Houses (Metropolis) Act, 1874,
Section 3." It was felt that public advantage would result from
the action recommended to be taken, for were the business
scheduled under the Act, we should be able to secure a proper
construction of the premises where it is carried on, proper
impermeable receptacles for the collection, storage, and removal
of the fat, &c., and frequent, if not daily, removal of offensive
matters from the premises. Incidentally, moreover, the nuisance
would be diminished, for if the business were subjected to
needful supervision, the proprietors would impress on vendors,
domestic servants for the most part, the necessity of submitting
their "perquisites" for sale in a more wholesome condition.
The Board, however, did not adopt the views submitted by
your Vestry, for in their reply they stated that "the businesses to
which the Act of 1874 refers, are businesses which include
processes of manufacture of a more or less offensive character, and
that it does not appear to the Board that the mere collection of a
mass of refuse matter into one place is a 'business' within the
meaning of the 3rd Section of the Act." But among "offensive"
businesses already scheduled are those of "bone boiler," "tallow
melter," and "fat extractor," the staple articles of which are
obtained largely from "rag and bone shops." The " processes of
manufacture," moreover, in melting tallow, and in boiling bones or