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21
NOXIOUS AND OFFENSIVE TRADES.
On the 25th of May last, a formal complaint was made to me, by a
gentleman residing in the Bethnal Green-road, that the tallow melting
business at 326, Bethnal Green-road, was carried on in such a manner as to
be a nuisance, and injurious to the health of himself and family. I
accordingly called on Messrs. Cook and carefully inspected the factory.
It seems that Messrs. Cook's business has been in operation, at 326,
Bethnal Green-road, for a period of about forty years. The process of
candle making was also carried on upon the same premises until about
eighteen months age; but latterly this has been given up and the melting
process only carried on, probably to an increased extent. This process is
as follows:—The fat is brought to the premises in sacks by butchers,
and piled on shelves in an upper room. In cold weather this fat is sweet
enough, but in hot, close weather decomposition takes place very rapidly,
and the fat soon becomes rancid and foul-smelling. The next step is, the
fat is minced by a machine and passed down a perpendicular shoot into a
copper in the room below, where it is subjected to a temperature sufficiently
high to thoroughly cook the fat, and extract all the tallow; it
must actually boil, and during the process of ebullition a considerable
amount of vapour passes off, which, finding its way through the windows
of the factory, constitutes the nuisance complained of. To obviate this as
much as possible, the copper is covered in, and two large flues lead from
the back of it into the ash-pit of the furnace, and as the ash-pit door is
kept constantly closed, the greater portion of the steam is drawn through
the fire and consumed. During the process of melting, it is necessary for
the contents of the copper to be constantly stirred, and this is done
through an opening in the cover. When the fat is thoroughly cooked,
the lid is thrown open, and the liquid tallow is ladled out of the copper
and received into vats for cooling; the refuse animal matter is then
placed in a powerful hydraulic press, and the remaining portion of tallow
squeezed out.
Unquestionably, the escape of steam constitutes the nuisance, and
any means by which that could be prevented or mitigated would proportionately
diminish the nuisance. I found that the escape of steam
occurred in three ways:— 1st, up the perpendicular fat shoot (which was