town declines further service, or from change of residence or otherwise becomes unable to attend to the duties of the board, the remaining members shall, in writing, give notice of the fact to the selectmen of such town, and the two boards shall thereupon, after giving public notice of at least one week, jointly proceed to fill such vacancy.

Acts of 1895, 332, § 1.

health, how

vacancies and

In each city, except Boston, there shall be appointed City boards of by the mayor subject to confirmation or rejection by appointed. the board of aldermen, except where other provision is made in the city charter, a board of health, consisting of three members, who shall hold office for the Term of office, term of three years from the first Monday in February removals. next succeeding their appointment, one of whom shall be 1877 a doctor of medicine. They shall not be members of the city council. If such boards are not already in existence, appointments shall be made as herein provided of three persons, one for the term of one year, one for the term of two years and one for the term of three years; and thereafter one member shall be appointed annually for the term of three years from the first Monday in February next succeeding such appointment. Members of existing P. 8. 80, § 8. boards shall continue to hold office until the appointment of a new board in accordance with the provisions of this act. All vacancies shall be filled by appointment for the unexpired term as above-provided. Each member so ap- 133 Mass. 538. pointed shall be subject to removal by the mayor for cause, and shall receive such compensation as the city council shall from time to time determine.

1894, 174.

P. S., 80, § 5.

Every such board of health may appoint a physician to Board may the board, who shall hold his office during its pleasure.

appoint physician.

1816

P. S., 80, § 6.

of physician,

Such board shall establish the salary or other compen- Compensation sation of such physician, and shall regulate all fees and etc. charges of persons employed by it in the execution of the 1816 health laws and of its own regulations.

How to be organized. 1877

Powers and duties.

1877

To make annual reports. 1877

May enforce regulations as to house drainage.

1702

1877

1881

P. S., 80, § 9.

Such boards shall organize annually by the choice of one of their number as a chairman; they may also choose a clerk, not a member of the board, and make such rules and regulations for their own government and for the government of all subordinate officers in their department as they may deem expedient.

P. S., 80, § 10.

Such boards may exercise all the powers vested in, and shall perform all the duties prescribed to, city councils or mayors and aldermen as boards of health, under the statutes and ordinances in force in their respective cities on the seventeenth day of May in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven; and may appoint such subordinate officers, agents and assistants as they may deem necessary, and may fix their compensation and that of their clerk; but the whole amount of such compensation shall not exceed the sum appropriated therefor by the city council.

P. S., 80, § 11.

In each city such board of health shall annually, in January, present to the city council a report made up to and including the thirty-first day of the preceding December, and containing a full and comprehensive statement. of its acts during the year, and a review of the sanitary condition of the city; it shall also, when the city council or the standing committee thereof on finance so requires, send to the auditor of accounts an estimate in detail of the appropriations required by its department during the next financial year.

P. S., 80, § 12.

Such boards may prepare and enforce in their respective cities such regulations as they deem necessary for the safety and health of the people, with reference to house drainage and its connection with public sewers, where a public sewer abuts the estate to be drained.

The following decision was made on statutes applying to the city of Boston:

The Statute of 1885, chap. 382, sect. 2, as amended by the Statute of 1889, chap. 450, sect. 2, providing under a penalty

that certain buildings in Boston "situated on a public or private street, court, or passageway, in which there is a public sewer, and every building connected with any sewer, shall have sufficient water-closets connected with the sewer, and shall not have a cesspool or privy, except where in the opinion of the board of health it can be allowed to remain temporarily, and then only as said board shall approve," applies to violations which continue after its passage, or which then come into existence, and is constitutional as an exercise of the police power.

The Legislature by the use of the word "water-closet" in the Statutes of 1885, chap. 382, sects. 1, 2, and 1889, chap. 450, sect. 2, intended an arrangement, then in common use, connected with a sewer, and having a permanent water supply which can be used systematically and regularly for carrying whatever is deposited therein to the sewer, and not a privy vault, which, although connected with a sewer, has no water supply for flushing it, except such as depends on chance.

Commonwealth v. Roberts, 155 Mass. 281.

Acts of 1889, 108.

thorize boards

of health to

make regula.

drainage and its

Any town may authorize its board of health to make Towns may auand enforce in such town such regulations as said board may deem necessary for the safety and health of the tions as to house people with reference to house drainage and its connec- connection with tion with public sewers, where a public sewer abuts the sewers. estate to be drained. Whoever violates any such regulation shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars.

1889

Acts of 1890, 74, § 1.

to be established

street without

permission of

board of health.

No privy vault shall be established in a city which Privy vault not accepts this act either upon premises situated on a public in sewered or private street, court or passageway where there is a public sewer opposite thereto, or upon premises connected with a public or private sewer, without permission in writing first obtained from the board of health of such city. And whenever there is in such city a privy vault so situated which, in the opinion of the board of health of such city, is injurious to the public health, said board shall continuance. declare the same to be a nuisance, and forbid its continuance, and sections twenty-one to twenty-three inclusive of chapter eighty of the Public Statutes shall apply to such nuisances so declared.

Board may denuisance and

clare vault a

forbid its

Acts of 1890, 74, § 2.

This act shall take effect in any city of the Commonwealth when accepted by the city council thereof.

Acts of 1890, 132, § 1.

Every building situated on a public or private street, court or passageway, in which there is a public sewer, shall, when required by the board of health of the city or town in which it stands, be connected by a good and sufficient particular drain with such public sewer.

Acts of 1890, 132, § 2.

Any person owning, leasing or maintaining any building not connected with a public sewer as provided in the preceding section shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two hundred dollars.

On a complaint under Statute of 1890, chap. 132, against the defendant for maintaining a building not connected with a public sewer, although required to connect it by the board of health, it appeared that the city council, under its charter, ordered the committee on drainage "to extend section 3 of the eastern intercepting sewer from its present terminus through C and New C streets to W Avenue"; that the sewer was laid through private land below the point where it passed the defendant's house, without other authority than the statute and the land-owner's unrecorded waiver under seal of damages, and that it was laid through the defendant's land at a place above his own house, and the defendant neither had licensed it nor had been paid for it. Held, that the order was sufficiently definite, and implied an adjudication of necessity; that the sewer was lawful below the defendant's house, and that it was immaterial that the waiver was not recorded; that if the sewer was unlawful where it crossed the land above, it was not made unlawful throughout; that the failure to keep the plan of the sewer in the city clerk's office had no bearing on the proceedings; and that a short answer to most of the defendant's objections was that they could be taken only by certiorari.

Commonwealth v. Abbott, 160 Mass. 282.

P. S., 80, § 16.

The board of health in a city or town may appoint an agent or agents to act for it in cases of emergency, or when it cannot be conveniently assembled; and such agent so appointed shall have all the authority which the

board appointing them had; but he shall, within two days, report his action in each case to it for its approval, and shall be directly responsible to it and under its control and direction. An agent appointed to make sanitary inspections may make complaint in cases of violation of any law, ordinance, or by-law relating to the public health in a city or town.

It is not necessary that a complaint to recover the forfeiture provided by the Pub. Stats., chap. 80, sect. 21, for permitting a nuisance to remain on the premises after the time prescribed by the board of health of the town for its removal, should be made by the town treasurer, but it may be made by an agent of the board of health, appointed under the Pub. Stats., chap. 80, sect. 16.

An omission in a complaint, under the Pub. Stats., chap. 80, sect. 21, for permitting a nuisance to remain on the premises after the time prescribed by the board of health of the town for its removal, to allege that the complainant is an agent of the board of health, he being in fact such agent, is at most a formal defect, which can be availed of only by a motion to quash. Commonwealth v. Alden, 143 Mass. 113.

A notice issued, under Pub. Stats., chap. 80, sect. 21, by the board of health of a town to the occupant of certain premises, ordering him to remove the nuisance existing thereon, may be served by a constable, although he is a member of the board of health and signs the notice.

Commonwealth v. Alden, 143 Mass. 113.

P. S., 80, § 17.

The board of health of a city or town shall retain charge To retain charge of case, of any case arising under the provisions of this chapter after acting in which it shall have acted, to the exclusion of the overseers of the poor.

therein.

1874

DISPOSAL OF GARBAGE.

Acts of 1889, 326.

Whoever knowingly feeds or has in his possession with intent to feed to any milch cow, any garbage, refuse or offal collected by any city or town, or by any person having authority from any city or town, by contract or otherwise, shall be punished by imprisonment in the jail or house of correction not exceeding sixty days or by fine. not exceeding one hundred dollars.

Garbage and fed to milch

offal not to be

COWS.