PLAGUE OF FLIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17837, 9 October 1929, Page 14

PLAGUE OF FLIES.

90,000 PEOPLE IN PERIL. FROM EVER-GROWING DUMP. The great Hornchurch dump in Essex which has been allowed to grow unchecked for 33- years, is creeping nearer and nearer to the new Becontree housing estate,- says a London paper. incredible as it may seem, in this settlement -of 90,000 people, with an average of five children to every house, windows must be kept shut night and day because of the flies. And these people live within 13 miles of London Bridge. The reason is summed up in a report issued this year by the Ministry of Health, which deals with the riverside dumps where the refuse of London is left lo rot. “I consider each of these dumps a potential danger to the public health,” says Mr J. C. Dawes, the editor of the report.

Three allotment holders at Becontree said that they had given up trying to grow potatoes in despair because of the raiding parties of rats from the dump which loot them. A doctor pointed In eloquent silence to his luncheon table, where a meal was laid out under cover of a tablecloth to keep away some, at least, of the myriads of files that breed and multiply in London’s garbage heaps. Prom Dagenhan to Tilbury eight reeking dumps waft their foulness over Essex, and if the wind veers a little to the southward the fumes from the Crossness sewage farm, on the south bank are added to it.