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146
The case turned largely, it will be observed, on the method of
burning, and counsel for the defendant enquired whether, if his
client erected a proper apparatus, the magistrate would prohibit
the burning? to which the magistrate replied, that he had no
power to say that the defendant must not burn bricks; it was
a lawful trade. It may be asked, Why do not the Hammersmith
Vestry adopt the same course as the St. Pancras Vestry?
Possibly it is because they do not believe that there is any
nuisance, for in the correspondence I had with my colleague, the
Medical Officer of Health for that parish, the matter was always
referred to by him as an "alleged nuisance" only.
It may be further mentioned that the subject of nuisance from
brick-burning came before one of the superior courts also, in 1889,
"The Bedford Park Brickfield Case" was an action of the
Attorney-General (at and by the relation of the Chiswick Local
Board) v. Thomas Hussey: it came before Mr. Justice Kay, in
the Chancery Division, on the 2nd August, in the form of an
interlocutory motion for an injunction to restrain the defendant
from creating a nuisance by the burning of bricks at his brickfields
on the north-east side of Bedford Park, in the Parish of Hammersmith.
The defendant undertook, until the trial or further order,
not to mould any more bricks, not to burn any bricks with the
exception of those then upon the ground, and not to burn any
breeze or core containing any vegetable or organic matter.
Defendant also undertook not to make or burn any bricks whatever
on the ground after the 25th September (last), until the trial
of the action or further order, and the Court gave liberty to apply
to expedite the trial.*
Much has been said from time to time on the subject of the
immediate cause of the offensive smells, it being asserted that
mere brick-burning could not produce them, and it has been
alleged that they must be due to the surreptitious burning of "soft
* The case was heard in June, 1890. See Addendum (page 147).