Offensive Trades.—The legal enactments relating to offensive trades are contained in sect. 112 of the Public Health Act, 1875, which states, any person who, after the passing of this Act, establishes within the district of an urban sanitary authority, without their consent in writing, any offensive trade, that is to say, the trade of—

shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds in respect of the establishment thereof, and a penalty not exceeding forty shillings for every day on which the offence is continued.

These provisions can only be enforced in rural districts with the sanction of the Local Government Board.

The “other noxious or offensive trades,” in order to be brought within the operation of the section, must be analogous to those which are specially enumerated.

The most exhaustive and authoritative report on this subject is by the late Dr. Ballard, whose report is largely quoted in the following remarks.

We may consider (1) the extent to which the public is inconvenienced by various effluvium nuisances. The majority of the nuisances arise from trade processes in which animal matters are chiefly used. Among the most disgusting are the effluvia from gut-scraping, and the preparation of sausage skins and catgut, the preparation of artificial manures from “skutch” (the refuse matter of the manufacture of glue), the manufacture of some kinds of artificial manures, and the melting of some kinds of fat. Manufacturing businesses dealing with vegetable substances are often offensive, but rarely give out disgusting effluvia. The most offensive vegetable effluvia are probably those thrown off during the heating of vegetable oils, as in the boiling of linseed oil, the manufacture of palmitic acid from cotton oil or palm oil, the manufacture of some kinds of varnish, the drying of fabrics coated with such varnishes, and the burning of painted articles, such as disused meat-tins.

Occasionally offensive effluvia arise in connection with industries in which neither vegetable nor animal matters are used; as in the manufacture of sulphate or chloride of ammonia, and some other processes in which sulphuretted hydrogen is copiously evolved; and in the making of gas and the distillation of tar. The fumes from the manufacture of alkali and bleaching powder are acid and irritating, and produce very injurious effects on vegetation in the neighbourhood.

The distances to which nuisances extend vary greatly according to circumstances—as, for instance, the elevation at which the effluvia are discharged into the air. Discharge from a high chimney may relieve the immediate vicinity of the works at the partial expense of those living at a greater distance. With a damp and comparatively stagnant atmosphere, effluvia have a much greater tendency to cling about a neighbourhood.

(2) The industrial processes in which offensive effluvia are produced are classified by Dr. Ballard as follows:—