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160
These suggestions were adopted by your Vestry, and communicated
to every bakehouse proprietor. The number of bakehouses
in Kensington is 148, viz., 81 in North Kensington, and 67 in
South Kensington.
REFUSE MATTERS.
The prevention of nuisance from accumulations of offensive
matters, coming under the general description, Refuse, is a matter
of no little difficulty. This difficulty, common to all parts of the
Metropolis, is not likely to be surmounted without legislative
action. The subject, in relation to certain important parts of it,
was very fully dealt with in my annual report for 1887 (at pages
153 and 176), in connection with a report by the Law and Parlimentary
Committee, and in my observations on a communication
received by your Vestry, November, 1887, from the Metropolitan
Board of Works, under the heading "Conveyance of Offensive
Substances through Streets." A copy of this report was sent to
every member of the London County Council, which is the proper
and only body able to deal effectively with the matter, viz., by
procuring legislative power enabling them to frame sanitary byelaws.
HOUSE REFUSE.
The collection of ashes and miscellaneous refuse from
nearly 23,000 inhabited houses, spread over an area of more
than 2200 acres, and to the extent of 42,547 loads in a single
year, is no light task. That it is on the whole satisfactorily
performed may be inferred from the comparative fewness of complaints,
which used to be numerous when the work was in the
hands of contractors. Relatively few as the complaints now
are, a not inconsiderable proportion of them results from the
neglect of domestic servants to allow the refuse to be removed
when the periodical call of the dustman is made. Nuisance,
in the sanitary sense, need not arise even from a full dustbin:
when it does occur it is due to improper use of the receptacle
by the deposit therein of animal and vegetable matters, of