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fishmongers', poulterers' and greengrocers' shops, etc., with a
view to its collection, removal, and ultimate disposal, by
utilization or destruction. It also treated of house refuse, stable
refuse, and cowshed refuse. The Society forwarded the report
to the (late) Metropolitan Board of Works, the Vestries and
District Boards, etc. It was also circulated largely among
Members of Parliament; the Society sharing my view that the
subject could not be effectually dealt with save by legislation.
For some years I had been directing attention to the question,
especially as it bore upon the nuisance arising in the conduct of
the business of the marine-store keeper (rag and bone dealer),
and ultimately (in 1883) your Vestry resolved to apply to the
Metropolitan Board of Works to schedule this particular trade
as an "offensive business" under the provisions of the Slaughter
Houses (Metropolis) Act, 1871. The Board declined to do this,
upon the ground that the business was not such as the legislature
intended to be dealt with under that Act. The High
Court of Justice (Queen's Bench Division), subsequently, in an
appeal case, came to a different conclusion, and declared the
business of a rag and bone dealer to be ejusdem generis with those
scheduled in section 3 of the Act. In November, 1887, a communication
was received from the Special Purposes and Sanitary
Committee of the Board on
CONVEYANCE OF OFFENSIVE SUBSTANCES
THROUGH STREETS.
The Committee intimated that they were satisfied that
"serious nuisance does arise in the collection and conveyance,
through streets, of offensive substances, such as fish-offal, blood,
kitchen stuff, etc." They admitted, also, that the provisions of
the Nuisances Removal Acts and the Metropolis Management
Act do not enable the Local Sanitary Authorities to deal
effectively with the nuisance, and that additional legislative
powers were necessary. But before recommending the Board
to take any steps for obtaining an amendment of the law, the