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204
were regularly inspected, and such action taken in individual
cases as was found necessary for ensuring compliance with the
sanitary provisions of the Factory Acts. (Vide page 165 also.)
RUFUSE 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, as I have often asserted in these Reports,
not likely to be surmounted without legislative action. Such
action is now being taken: provisions in the Public Health
(London) Bill—which will pass, the Act coming into force in
1892—dealing with the matter, especially by enabling the County
Council or the Sanitary Authority to make bye-laws, in conformity
with my views, expressed in these Reports (vide page 95). This 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 Parliamentary Committee,
and in my observations on a communication received by
your Yestry, 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, as I observed in
my last Report, "is the proper and only body able to deal effectively
with the matter, viz., by procuring legislative power
enabling them to frame sanitary bye-laws."
HOUSE REFUSE.
The collection of ashes and miscellaneous refuse from 22,000
inhabited houses, spread over an area of some 2200 acres, and to
the extent of 44,549 loads in 1890, 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