FISH OFFAL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 134, 4 December 1930, Page 15

FISH OFFAL

"SUPERLATIVE IN BAD SMELLS"

The use of fisli offal as manure and the smell it made when it was ploughed up after having been for a long tinio in the ground caused the neighbours of Charles Walters, a market gardener, to complain to the Hutt County Council. Yesterday in the Magistrate's Court at Lower Hutt Walters was charged by the council's sanitary inspector with having caused or allowed fish offal to be dangerous to health or offensive. He pleaded not-guilty. Mr, Gr. K. Powles conducted the prose? cution. ■- W. Kihnister said that he was a farmer living near the property of Walters iv Park avenue, Lower Hutt. On the night of the 19th August he had no sleep at all because of the strong smell, right through his house, of fish offal. He complained to the County Council next morning. The Offal, iv Walters's property had been under the ground and had been ploughed up. For years the neighbours had had the smell of the offal from the defendant's land, but since 19th. August there had been no nuisance. Witness added that hundreds of seagulls would carry fish heads and ,bones from •Walters's;.to. his .property and eat them there. , C. H. Ingram, a storekeeper, who lived near Walters, was the next witness. '"The jsmell on the night of 19th .August was so abusive that we* had to-close'the doors to keepit out of the,shop," lie said. It had come from the direction 6i Waltcrs's place. Since then there had been no occasion for complaint. ' W. S. Brice, a resident of Park avenue, also said that there had been no smell since 19th August, but on that night' it had been very strong. ' He agreed with Mr. Powles that it< was "a superlative in bad smells." Ernest Middleton, sanitary inspector for the Hutt County Council, said that he had visited the .property of Walters on 20th August, and; found the defendant rolling the ground, •.; from ''■■■which offal", had been ploughed up.:- Walters had said that the offal was ploughed up the evening before, after having been in, the ground for three months.- There was a decided The defence otc-Walters w;is> that .the land coinplained-.-tf, as carrying-fish; offal was a piec« he had let to another man. Mr. Powles: "Is it not a fact that in December last you were convicted and fined £1 for letting fish offal smell?"— "Yes.'f :..■..' •.. .Walters said'-that;'on the. evening or 19th August the piece of land he had let was "ploughed by himself and his son. They rolled it the nest morning. He no longer used fish offal on his land, but his brothers, on adjoining property, did. "I'll give any-man £20 if he-can take a spade and! find: fresh -fish offal anywhere on my property," he-concluded. " The Magistrate (Mr. T. B. M'Neil, S.M.) thought that'the offence was proved, because the section under which the charge was laid held the defendant responsible as tho owner of the property^- In view of the fact that tho "offence had not recurrcWandv that the '/defendant had sworn that he was not putting any more offal •on the \ ground,: he rthought that justice would be m'gfc if the defendant was convicted- and ordered to pay the costs, £3 18s. Tho defendant would be ordered to prevent a recurrence of the nuisance.