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to allow the area gate to be unlocked, thus wilfully endangering
the safety of the unfortunate dustmen ; and I suggested that your
Vestry should insist on safe and convenient access to the receptacle
being given. Within the last two years three of the dustmen
have been impaled on the spikes of area railings. Such an
accident cannot happen again, your Vestry having issued instructions,
upon the recommendation of the Wharves and Plant
Committee, forbidding the use of ladders, and requiring that
access be given to the dustbin through the house when necessary.
A constantly increasing difficulty is experienced in finding
convenient, i.e., accessible, "shoots" for house refuse; to the
deposit of which within their boundaries the Sanitary Authorities
of contiguous districts naturally object. The refuse, moreover,
has little value now that building operations are being
prosecuted upon so limited a scale in, or within easy distance of,
the Parish, and nearer districts being able to supply the brickmakers'
wants. To obviate this difficulty, for all future time, and
be enabled to dispose of the refuse economically, and without
nuisance, your Vestry have lately decided to call in the aid of
the so-called " Destructor," and are at present seeking Parliamentary
powers for acquiring a site for the erection of the
necessary buildings on a proposed new depot in the Potteries.*
STABLE REFUSE.
I have frequently had occasion to draw your Vestry's attention
to nuisances arising from the wow-removal of stable refuse.
"Notice" has been given for the "periodical removal of
manure and other refuse matter," under the provisions of Section
53 of the Sanitary Act, 1866, which prescribes a penalty of
* When the Destructor shall have been provided it will become an interesting
question, Whether the immense and continuous volume of waste heat may not
be utilised for a variety of purposes ; e.g., for generating steam for driving
machinery at the depot, and dynamos for production of electric light, for lighting
the works, and possibly (by means of " accumulators ") the Town Hall and the
Public Baths and Washhouses also. The depdt being not far away from the
Baths, probably the waste heat might be further utilised for the production of
hot water for that institution, by means of an underground service-pipe well
covered with non-conducting material.