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air. From the winnowed flocks the finer suspended dust is conveyed by a pipe
which opens immediately below the furnace bars of the boiler furnace. The
organic and noxious dust passing this tube is thereby destroyed by combustion.
Another pipe or tube from the settling chambers passes into the chimney shaft
beyond the furnace lire, and the dust is of necessity carried up the chimney
shaft and discharged into the open air. This is objectionable; the whole of
the residual air from the settling chambers ought to pass through the furnace
fire, so as to ensure destruction of its combustible ingredients. The fluffy dust
deposited in the settling chambers is periodically removed to the extent of
several hundred weight a day, packed in bags and used as manure. It is an
indescribable mass of debris—woollen fibres, cotton fibres, other vegetable
fibres, sand and earth, spores, ova of insects, and animal cells. Fleas abound
on the premises.
The processes carried on are defective in consequence of the inadequate size
of the settling chambers. These ought to be much more capacious so as to
secure more efficient subsidence of the dust and fluff; but the limited space
available on the premises would appear to preclude the provision of chambers
of adequate size. Screens of sacking should be employed to detain fine dust.
Besides the injurious nuisance arising from escape of filthy dust, which is
likely to contain from time to time the germs of contagious diseases, and so
disseminate disease in the neighbourhood, there is an additional danger to
public health in the dissemination of disease by means of flocks sent to
furniture dealers. The use of flock beds made from filthy, and perhaps
specifically infected, rags is an undoubted source of danger to the public.
To summarise:—
1. The factory in question is so situated as to expose the neighbourhood to
nuisance and danger to health by the dissemination of filthy dust through the
t air.
2. The space is too limited to admit of the construction of settling chambers
of adequate size.
3. The whole of the dust is not passed through the fire, so as to ensure
destruction of its deleterious components.
4. No disinfecting process is applied to the rags and flocks: but this is a
customary defect in the manufacture of low-class flocks.
5. The best available means of obviating nuisance are not used, and the
limited space at command prevents the adoption of means which would be
easily available were the factory more favourably situated, and of adequate
size and area.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
THOS. STEVENSON,
M.D. Lond., L.R.C.P. Lond., Lecturer on Chemistry and
Medical Jurisprudence at Guy's Hospital. Examiner
in Public Health to the Royal Colleges of Physicians
and Surgeons, Vice-President of the Society of Medical
Officers of Health.
To Robert Voss, Esq.,
Vestry Clerk,
Bethnal Green.