View report page

119
framed in accordance with the provisions of the Acts, for the
guidance alike of their officers and of the proprietors of
bakehouses. This course was followed by your Vestry, and the
Regulations, printed in large type, and mounted on cardboard,
have been supplied to each bakehouse proprietor in this parish.
It only remains to add, that the number of bakehouses in the
Parish is 154: 86 in North Kensington, and 68 in South
Kensington.
REFUSE.
The prevention of nuisance from accumulations of offensive
matters, coming under the general description " Refuse," is a
matter of no little practical difficulty. The difficulty is common
to all parts of the Metropolis, and not likely to be surmounted
without legislative interference.* Some few years since the
subject was fully considered by a Special Committee of the
Society of Medical Officers of Health, whose report, unanimously
adopted by the Society, was printed in my Annual Report for
1880 (page 114). The conclusions arrived at may be summed up
as follows :—
1. Trade Refuse.—The Nuisance Authority should have power to collect,
ramove, and dispose of the trade refuse of butchers, fishmongers,
poulterers, greengrocers, etc., at the reasonable cost of the producers.
The collection of such refuse should be made in the early morning, and
its removal effected in specially constructed vehicles ; if practicable the
refuse should be utilised ; otherwise it should be destroyed by fire.
2. House Refuse.—In view of the increasing distance to brickfields, house
refuse will have to be dealt with by fire ; in specially constructed
apparatus of the "Destructor" type, by which its bulk may be reduced
some 75 per cent.; the resulting product, moreover, being at once
innocuous, and useful for road-making and other purposes : the refuse
should be collected daily, and "dustbins " abolished.
3. Stable and Cowshed Refuse.—The Nuisance Authority should have power
to collect the refuse at the reasonable cost of the owner ; cowshed refuse
daily, in vehicles designed to prevent slopping and effluvium nuisance ;
* The subject is dealt with in a report by the Law and Parliamentary
Committee, vide page 101.