View report page

190
lordship therefore directed judgment for the plaintiffs, with an
injunction to restrain the burning of bricks in such a way as to
interfere with the comfort of the plaintiffs. In what is known
as the Hampstead case, after a few professional and other
witnesses had given their evidence, Mr. Justice Wills, at the
request of the defendants, consented to view the brickfields, and
upon coming into court his lordship said he found a nuisance to
exist. With the consent of the defendants he stopped the case,
delivering judgment in favour of the plaintiffs, with costs.
The nuisance, it may be mentioned, does not arise from
burning clay per se, but is due to the combustion of refuse
matter obtained from dust-bins, and used in the manufacture
of the bricks and as fuel in the baking of the
bricks. The dust is sifted to remove matter of an organic
nature, animal and vegetable, but no amount of sifting
will prevent putrid emanations when the refuse is burned.
In the Hampstead case the Vestry's sanitary officers compelled
the removal of all " soft core " from the field, and it
was admitted that the defendants conducted their business with
due care, sifting the refuse repeatedly, etc. Still the nuisance
continued. Dust-bin refuse, it may be mentioned, is left a year
to "mellow," exposed to wind and rain, and thus the ashes
become saturated with organic matter. The clay of which the
brick is moulded is usually incorporated with dust-bin ashes.
The bricks are burned in " clamps," or layers of green bricks
separated by layers of " breeze," i.e., cinder siftings from dustheaps.
"Kilns" for burning bricks, on the other hand, have to
be constructed, and coal dust is used in them, so that the cost
of brick production is considerably enhanced. At the rear of
the particular brickfield complained of at Hampstead, there are
others in which bricks are burned in kilns, and from these, it is
stated, no putrid fumes arise, but plenty of smoke. The
Hampstead defendants, however, contended that they must
use the sort of material they did use to produce the common
stock brick.