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Interpretation of “nuisance” under the public health act
56
NEW
INVENTIONS
NEW I N V E N T I O N S . THE BOSTEL NEW PATENT SILENT ACTION AUTOMATIC FLUSH CISTERN. ~ This invention
aims at making the flush as silent as is practicable. The main cause of the noise of ordinary flushing consists in the vacuum produced in the syphon, and the consequent noisy rush of air following the water. By the simple addition of an india-rubber valve, Mr. Bostel claims to have remedied this !
~ck .¢
defect. In the diagram, A is the charging valve ; B, rubber valve, working in three upright wires, C C C ; BA, rubber seating or cushion to receive the rubber ball, B; D is the brass syphon ,. E, safety frame, to regulate pressure ; F, air pipe. It is obvious that at the end of the flush, when the small cistern is nearly empty, the ball B jams down on to BA, and effectually prevents air and water rushing through.
LECTURES ON SANITARYSCIENCE.--The following lectures and demonstrations to medical men
will be delivered at the Sanitary Institute, Parkes ~Iuseum, 74a, Margaret Street, W., at 5 p.m. : June 2xst (1), " S o m e Considerations on Ocular Hygiene," R. Brudenell Carter, F.R.C.S. June ~5th (2), '¢ On the Infectious Hospitals of London as a Defence against Epidemics," Edward Seaton, M.D., F.R.C.P. July 2nd (3), "Vital Statistics," Louis Parkes, M.D., D.P.H.Lond. July sth (4), " T h e Water we Drink," R. W. Peregrine Birch, M.Inst.C.E. July 9th (5), " H o u s e Sanitation," Prof. W. H. Corfield, M A., M.D. (Oxon). July 12th (6), " F o o d Adulteration," Chas. E. Cassal, F.C.S., F.I.C. July x6th (7), " Medical Guidance in the selection of Schools for certain Children," Clement Dukes, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.P.Lond. July 19th (9), "Warming, Lighting, and Ventilation," Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. July 23rd, "Meteorology in relation to Health," G. J. Symons, F.R.S. July 26th, "Bacteria in relation to Disease," Prof. E. M. Crookshank. The lectures will be open to all members of the Medical Profession on presenting their cards.
INTERPRETATION OF " NUISANCE" U N D E R T H E P U B L I C H E A L T H ACT. THE decision of the Court of Appeal in R. v. Parlby (Q. B., L. T., Vol. Ix., N.S. 42) is an important one. The Compton Giffard Local Board (Devon) carried out in i88I a syslem of drainage for their district, part of the scheme being certain subsidence tanks and other works without their own district, within that of the Plympton St. Mary district. The sewage works became a nuisance, and this nuisance the Plympton Sanitary Authority attempted to abate in the usual way under the 9i-98 sections of the Public Health Act, by notice, followed by obtaining a magistrate's order. A writ of certiorari was sued out to quash the magistrate's order. In the judgment Justice Wills said : - " I n our opinion the provisions sect. 9~-98 have no application to sewage works constructed under the powers of sect. 27 . We think the words of sect. 91 do not include them, and we think were not meant to include them. It is clear that the expression 'premises in such a state as to be a nuisance ' has not the wide application claimed for it by the respondents, who say that it is answered by any premises on which a nuisance exists. If that were so, the enumeration of, at all events, tbe several kinds of nuisances specified under heads 2, 3, 4, and 6 would be unnecessary. We do not attempt to define every class of case to which the first head applies, but we think it is confined to cases in which the premises themselved are decayed, dilapidated, dirty, or out of order, as, for instance, where houses have been inhabited by tenants whose habits and ways of life have rendered them filthy or impregnated with disease, or where foul matter has been allowed to soak into walls or floors, or where they are so dilapidated as to be a danger to life and limb. It is a significant fact that under the second head the various receptacles for running or stagnant water stop with ' drains,' which, by the interpretation clause, are not sewers, and, to take broader and higher ground, it seems to us incredible that when the Legislature had entrusted the local boards with a most difficult and thankless task, in the execution of which there were certain to be, as there have been in fact, a proportion of failures, involving perhaps a cost to the district of tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds, and taxing the utmost resources of mechanical art and engineering skill to set them right, a jurisdiction should be conferred upon two magistrates, with an appeal to a recorder or to a bench of justices at quarter sessions, to substitute their judgment of the mode in which, and the cost at which the mischiet should be cured, for that of the local board and their skilled advisers."
NEW
INVENTIONS
NEW I N V E N T I O N S . THE BOSTEL NEW PATENT SILENT ACTION AUTOMATIC FLUSH CISTERN. ~ This invention
aims at making the flush as silent as is practicable. The main cause of the noise of ordinary flushing consists in the vacuum produced in the syphon, and the consequent noisy rush of air following the water. By the simple addition of an india-rubber valve, Mr. Bostel claims to have remedied this !
~ck .¢
defect. In the diagram, A is the charging valve ; B, rubber valve, working in three upright wires, C C C ; BA, rubber seating or cushion to receive the rubber ball, B; D is the brass syphon ,. E, safety frame, to regulate pressure ; F, air pipe. It is obvious that at the end of the flush, when the small cistern is nearly empty, the ball B jams down on to BA, and effectually prevents air and water rushing through.
LECTURES ON SANITARYSCIENCE.--The following lectures and demonstrations to medical men
will be delivered at the Sanitary Institute, Parkes ~Iuseum, 74a, Margaret Street, W., at 5 p.m. : June 2xst (1), " S o m e Considerations on Ocular Hygiene," R. Brudenell Carter, F.R.C.S. June ~5th (2), '¢ On the Infectious Hospitals of London as a Defence against Epidemics," Edward Seaton, M.D., F.R.C.P. July 2nd (3), "Vital Statistics," Louis Parkes, M.D., D.P.H.Lond. July sth (4), " T h e Water we Drink," R. W. Peregrine Birch, M.Inst.C.E. July 9th (5), " H o u s e Sanitation," Prof. W. H. Corfield, M A., M.D. (Oxon). July 12th (6), " F o o d Adulteration," Chas. E. Cassal, F.C.S., F.I.C. July x6th (7), " Medical Guidance in the selection of Schools for certain Children," Clement Dukes, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.P.Lond. July 19th (9), "Warming, Lighting, and Ventilation," Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. July 23rd, "Meteorology in relation to Health," G. J. Symons, F.R.S. July 26th, "Bacteria in relation to Disease," Prof. E. M. Crookshank. The lectures will be open to all members of the Medical Profession on presenting their cards.
INTERPRETATION OF " NUISANCE" U N D E R T H E P U B L I C H E A L T H ACT. THE decision of the Court of Appeal in R. v. Parlby (Q. B., L. T., Vol. Ix., N.S. 42) is an important one. The Compton Giffard Local Board (Devon) carried out in i88I a syslem of drainage for their district, part of the scheme being certain subsidence tanks and other works without their own district, within that of the Plympton St. Mary district. The sewage works became a nuisance, and this nuisance the Plympton Sanitary Authority attempted to abate in the usual way under the 9i-98 sections of the Public Health Act, by notice, followed by obtaining a magistrate's order. A writ of certiorari was sued out to quash the magistrate's order. In the judgment Justice Wills said : - " I n our opinion the provisions sect. 9~-98 have no application to sewage works constructed under the powers of sect. 27 . We think the words of sect. 91 do not include them, and we think were not meant to include them. It is clear that the expression 'premises in such a state as to be a nuisance ' has not the wide application claimed for it by the respondents, who say that it is answered by any premises on which a nuisance exists. If that were so, the enumeration of, at all events, tbe several kinds of nuisances specified under heads 2, 3, 4, and 6 would be unnecessary. We do not attempt to define every class of case to which the first head applies, but we think it is confined to cases in which the premises themselved are decayed, dilapidated, dirty, or out of order, as, for instance, where houses have been inhabited by tenants whose habits and ways of life have rendered them filthy or impregnated with disease, or where foul matter has been allowed to soak into walls or floors, or where they are so dilapidated as to be a danger to life and limb. It is a significant fact that under the second head the various receptacles for running or stagnant water stop with ' drains,' which, by the interpretation clause, are not sewers, and, to take broader and higher ground, it seems to us incredible that when the Legislature had entrusted the local boards with a most difficult and thankless task, in the execution of which there were certain to be, as there have been in fact, a proportion of failures, involving perhaps a cost to the district of tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds, and taxing the utmost resources of mechanical art and engineering skill to set them right, a jurisdiction should be conferred upon two magistrates, with an appeal to a recorder or to a bench of justices at quarter sessions, to substitute their judgment of the mode in which, and the cost at which the mischiet should be cured, for that of the local board and their skilled advisers."