DANGEROUS PRACTICE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 88, 2 June 1911, Page 6

DANGEROUS PRACTICE.

f'TODS PR XT TO DKSTBU CTOII i SOLD AOAIN. 1 ■ ■ Some fairly strong comments were made in I!i'.* l '('i!\ when it was accidental l|y discoveiod that large quaiiiillicit lil' clnLiii!!;', ch apery, linen, and to !>■•> destroyed at the Christchurch tk’strmjfco; - with refuse have been carefully j > ; t aside I> v in cm employed by the Citv Council, and sold to outsidcm s, \\ ho have taken the goods aw ay. Ei'onivies’vvoi'd set on tool, and it was I'onnd that ’tire practice Inns boon I allowed fer years, probably as long as the dost: Me tor has been erected. The price paid l‘m\ the right to_ remove tl'cro goods is fJ.b a year. For that sum the privilege-holder is entitled to also take away bottles, broken metal, and other scraps. The extent to which this Hit!.' industry is carried on is shown I " the tact that I.>0() cartloads are. taken away every year, the contractor attending each day to take Ids section of goods that many houses have sent to the destructor. At noon the ether day there were awaiting the contractors’ attention several piles of goods which had been picked out from a mass of stinking material thrown into the tips from the dust carts. The goods lay on the floor of a chamber close to the mouth ol the furnace, which wan .consuming the refuse the contractor did not need. A strong, good-looking young man, stripped to jersey and trousers, and begrimed with dirt, was sweating in the beat and steam at 2s a day raking in the refuse with a huge threetoothed rake. The goods he had sot aside for preservation included faded tablecloths, window curtains, blinds, blankets, sheets, skirts, shirts, coats, trousers, and petticoats. ■ iconic of them apparently had ccmc from sick rooms, ami some may have come from '} Ibices • whore disease had raged. It is the probabilities in this direction that led to enquiries, being made into the? position. It was pointed out that the .goods had been sent in the destructor from ore place and another In ho destroyed, not to be preserved. They have been allowed to go out again ostensibly to a ragshop to bo washed and fnnpgr.tod, teased, and forwarded to paper mills or other establishments, hut there seems to have been absolutely no check on them after they left the destructor buildings, and there is no guarantee that they do not find their way iuro secondhand shops, to go epee. more into use, and pai Paps- to spread infection. Strict orders were issued the other day that the day’s pile of 1 goods should be consumed without delay, and that in the future anything of a textile nature taken to the destructor should not cross the doors again. The M a.', •or, when questioned about the matter, said that the condition of affairs having coino under, his notice, he had recur tiie chaiiman of the committee, Councillor IC. Smith, and instruction!; were at once given that no more t vatde lain ms of any desorption were to he..removed from the ;i« - stiuci-or i'-cmiscm Whatever went in was to I• destroyed. Oilier details connected ith tiro destructor plant would lie dealt, with at the next meot- , i eg,, ol tire- Works Com milted Mr. laykir added, that if had been found that instructions had been given some years.ago that ho clothing or textile iabrics of any.- description wore to he allowed to leave the destructor, but the instructions have apparently fallen into chshse in recent years.