PIGS CREATE NUISANCE

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 March 1931, Page 7

PIGS CREATE NUISANCE

LLTHAM FAltMls.lt- FINED

ACTION lIY HEALTH INSPECTOR

At the Magistrate’s Court. Eltlnim, on Tuesday, before Mr R. AY. Tate, S.M., .James Phillips was charged, on the information of the borough inspector. with keeping of pigs on premises in Kitchener Street in such a condition a;s to he offensive, thereby creating a nuisance. Ho was fined £l. with costs.

Mr .1. L. Weir, who appeared for Hi-.' IJur-ough Council, said the complaint was made by the local health ol'lif'cr who. in company with the health inspector, had visited the piggeries. where 22 pigs were kept in a small space. There was a great deal of offensive matter, smelling very hadlv. They saw defendant and warned him and went again to find some improvement. but the yard was just as much a nuisance.

The borough inspector. A. H. Lethbridge, gave evidence os to the visit to the niggery, where there was several inches of manure and swill flowing out on to the earth outside the stye. He told defendant he would lay an informa lion. There had been no attempt to bury the offensive matter. The place was a nuisance.. The inspector of health, Air It. Gooding, gave evidence on similar!

lines and said he had told defendant that if tlie offal was not buried he would lay an information.

Ho added, in reply to Mr Weir, that the piggery itself was fairly well built but the surroundings were not good. Defendant had brought the trouble on himself. .

Mr A. Ghryistal, for the defence, submitted that there was no evidence that the piggery was a nuisance and that to keep pigs was not an offence, but it was to keep them offensively, and this had not, in his opinion, been proved. Several neighbours gave evidence on behalf of defendant that the piggery was not a nuisance to them, j F. E. Boeock and Caleb Maslin .said they had long experience with pigs. The one in question was on a par with j piggeries round the district. Defendant gave evidence that he | had intended to clean the piggery on ] the -Saturday after the inspector’s visit, hut a. dairy picnic had prevented his doing the work. He added that he had tried fresn grass as a litter, hut it had proved a failure. He maintained he lhad done all that was reauired by the inspector. In reply to Mr Weir, witness said lie had always been prepared to do what was reasonable and necessary. He said that the smell never worried him and ho did not think: anyone had cause to complain. His Worship said there was no doubt of the nuisance, and it appeared to him to be a struggle between the old ideas and the new. The

Statute said that if a man kept pigs he must do this in a way that created no nuisance or was no daajger to health. There was no question the pigs had been offensive, and farmers must bo obliged to keep them better than was the case years agq. Mr Weir stated for the information of residents that the Borough Council did not wish to stop farmers on the outskirts keeping pigs, hut asked • them to see that they were kept in a proper manner. '