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district

boards for defraying their

expenses (a).

overseers (b) of their parish, or of the several parishes in their district, to levy and to pay over to the treasurer of such vestry or board, or into any bank in such order mentioned, and within the time or times thereby limited, the sums which such vestry or board may require for defraying the expenses of the execution of this Act (c) (and such orders may be made wholly or in part in respect of expenses already incurred or of expenses to be thereafter incurred); and every such vestry and board shall distinguish in their orders sums required for defraying expenses of constructing, altering, maintaining, and cleansing the sewers or otherwise connected with sewerage, and also, where the Act of the session holden in the third and fourth years of King William the Fourth, chapter ninety, or any other Act by virtue whereof land is rated in respect of expenses of lighting at a less amount in proportion to the annual value thereof than houses, or is wholly exempted from being rated in respect of such expenses, is in force in any parish, or any part of any parish, at the time of the passing of this Act, distinguish, as regards such parish, or part, the sums required for defraying expenses of

(a) Where parishes have been united into a district under this Act, the expense of keeping the pavements in repair, and every other expense of cleansing and lighting, should be charged on each parish according to its rateable value; The Overseers of the Poor of St. Botolph Without, Aldgate, v. The Board of Works for the Whitechapel District, 29 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 228. And, where the vestry or board have taken into consideration the special circumstances which may call for the application of the 159th sect. the court will not interfere with the exercise of their discretion as to the amount they may call for; ibid. This decision lays down the principle that the board are not bound to take into consideration the expenditure in each separate parish.

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"includes any

(b) By the 250th section the term overseers persons authorized to make and collect, or cause to be collected, the rate for the relief of the poor in any parish. See Christie v. Guardians of St. Luke's, Chelsea, cited in note (h) to sect. 161.

(c) See note (c) to sect. 144, ante, as to expenses of legal proceedings..

lighting their parish or district (d) from sums required for defraying other expenses of executing this Act; but every such vestry and board may cause to be raised as expenses connected with sewerage such portion of the expenses incident to the conduct of their business in relation to sewerage, in common with the conduct of their other business under this Act, as to such vestry or board may seem just; and the overseers or collectors, in the receipts to be given for the sums levied or collected by them, shall distinguish the rate in the pound required for sewerage expenses, and the rate required for the other expenses of this Act.

boards may exempt parts

CLIX. Where it appears to any vestry or district Vestrics and board that all or any part of the expenses for defraying which any sum is by such vestry or board ordered to be not benefited by expendilevied as aforesaid have or has been incurred for the ture from special benefit of any particular part of their parish or payment (e). district, or otherwise have or has not been incurred for

(d) The effect of this provision is to direct every vestry and district board to distinguish the sum required for lighting the whole parish, and to order a separate sum to be levied for defraying such expenses, which must be by a lighting rate over the whole parish; Overseers of the Parish of St. James, Westminster, and the Overseers of the Parish of St. Mary, Battersea, 29 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 26.

(e) In Howell v. The London Dock Company, 27 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 177, it was held that under this section a duty is cast on the vestry to apportion the burthen according to the benefit, and that if part of the property of the London Dock Company had not equal benefit with the other property in the parish rated to the poor from the paving expenses, the company were entitled to be relieved in respect of that part. It was also held to be sufficient if the fact of inequality existed, whether it had appeared to the vestry or not; and that the company were exempt from being rated in respect of profits not immediately connected with the use of any paved streets; Ibid. In R. v. The Great Western Railway Company, 28 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 59, Erle, J. objected to this decision being cited as an authority. Where a district board have come to a decision that a party is not entitled to exemption, the court will not interfere; West Middlesex Water Company v. Wandsworth District Board, 22 J. P. 336.

G

Provisions for cases

ment of the vestry or board of adjoining parish or district.

the equal benefit of the whole of their parish or district, such vestry or board may, by any such order, direct the sum or sums necessary for defraying such expenses or any part thereof to be levied in such part, or exempt any part of such parish or district from the levy, or require a less rate to be levied thereon, as the circumstances of the case may require; and any such board may refrain, where any entire parish ought in their judgment to be so exempt, from issuing an order for levying any money thereon, notwithstanding they may issue an order or orders for levying sums upon any other parish or parishes in their district.

CLX. Where part of any parish is placed for all or where a part any of the purposes of this Act under the management of a parish is of the vestry or district board of an adjoining parish or placed under the manage- district (f), the sums which such vestry or board may require for defraying the expenses of executing this Act by such vestry or board in the part so placed under their management shall be from time to time paid, upon their orders, by the vestry of the parish whereof such part is so placed under the management of such other vestry or board, or if such parish is comprised in a district formed by this Act then by the district board of such district; and such sums shall be raised by the vestry or board upon whom such orders are made in like manner as if the expenses in respect whereof the same are required had been incurred by them in executing this Act.

Overseers to collect the rate

CLXI. The overseers of the poor of every parish to whom any such order as aforesaid is issued, shall levy

in the same the amount mentioned therein according to the exigency

manner as

the poor

rate.

thereof, and shall for that purpose make separate equal pound rates (g) upon their parish, or the part thereof

(f) That is under the provision contained in sect. 140. (g) Under this Act no rate except the lighting and sewers rate need be kept distinct from the general rate, and all property must be rated to the general rate on the same scale as the poor rate in the parish, without any reference to differential scales of rating prescribed by a local Act; R. v.

upon which any sum specified in such order is required to be levied, in respect of each sum thereby ordered to be levied; that is to say, a separate rate in respect of each sum ordered to be levied for defraying expenses connected with sewerage, to be called a sewers rate (h); The Great Western Railway Company, 28 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 59. See provisions in the Union Assessment Committee Act, 1862, 25 & 26 Vict. c. 103, relative to valuation lists of rateable property.

(h) In Christie v. The Guardians of the Poor of St. Luke, Chelsea, 27 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 153, it was held that a rate made by the guardians of the poor pursuant to the order of the vestry, to whom a precept had been issued by the metropolitan board of works, requiring them to pay to the treasurer of the board a sum for defraying the expenses of the board was good, though it did not set out the precept or the order of the vestry, and that it was no objection to the rate that the order of the vestry was addressed to the overseers instead of to the guardians, as the guardians are overseers within the meaning of sect. 250; and as to what is a sufficient signing of the rate, ibid. A question was also raised in that case, whether there was any power of appeal against such a rate; but the right of appeal exists; Empson v. Metropolitan Board of Works, 25 J. P. 677.

The sewers rate ordered to be raised by this section is to be levied on the persons, and in respect of the property by law rateable to the relief of the poor in the respective parishes; and it is to be assessed upon the net annual value of such property, ascertained by the rate for the time being for the relief of the poor; subject, however, to the partial exemption created by the 163rd section, providing that particular descriptions of land should be rated only in the proportion of one-fourth, and to the exemptions, reductions, or allowances pointed out by the 164th section. It is likewise subject to the exemptions from the poor rate applicable to property of certain descriptions, or occupied in a particular manner created by express statutes, such as property occupied by scientific or literary societies, 6 & 7 Vict. c. 36. See Lumley's Commentary on the Parochial Assessment Act. And further, it is governed by the peculiar provisions which may exist in particular parishes under local Acts in relation to poor rates. The rates for sewerage expenses made by the commissioners of sewers of the city of London, under the provisions of the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 163, s. 168, et seq., are assessed upon every person who inhabits, &c., any house or building, whether liable to be assessed for the relief of the poor or not.

All persons whose property derives benefit from the sewers of the commissioners, or other body, are liable to be assessed to

a separate rate in respect of each sum ordered to be levied for defraying expenses of lighting (where a separate sum is ordered to be levied for defraying such ex

the sewers rate in respect of that property, and this principle has been laid down in the text books, and affirmed by a long current of decisions; Anselm v. Barnard, 2 Keb. 675; R. v. Wright, 2 Keb. 42; Masters v. Scroggs, 3 M. & S. 447; Stafford v. Hamston, 2 B. & B. 691; R. v. Commissioners of Sewers for the Tower Hamlets, 9 B. & C. 517; St. Katherine Dock Company v. Higgs, 14 L. J. (N. S.), Q. B. 348, affirmed in error, 16 L. J. (N. S.), Q. B. 377; Soady v. Wilson, 3 A. & E. 248; The Metropolitan Board of Works v. Vauxhall Bridge Company, 26 L. J. (N. S.). Q. B. 253; Serjt. Woolrych, Law of Sewers, p. 66. But the application of this rule to the assessments upon property in the metropolis, having regard to the provisions of the Act allowing exemptions in certain cases, will be found to be attended with considerable difficulty. In Masters v. Scroggs, supra, it was decided that a person who lived at Hampstead, whose basement story was 307 feet above the crown of the arch of the Battle-bridge sewer, so that the obstruction of that sewer could not throw back the water to the injury of his premises, was not liable to be rated; but in Soady v. Wilson, supra, it was held that the benefit need not be immediate, and that it might be sufficient if the property were benefited by reason of the public streets in the neighbourhood being properly drained. In the judgment in that case Lord Denman, C. J., says :-"The benefit is not required to be immediate, nor do the cases, nor the commission itself, nor the statute say anything of the nature or amount of the benefit. The possibility of benefit may be so extremely small that a jury would not have found the fact stated in the case; but, on the other hand, the kind of benefit may be of high value, as if a house was inaccessible because surrounded by marshes, and the works of drainage had made them perfectly dry ;" and see Dorling v. Epsom Local Board of Health, 24 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 152; 5 E. & B. 471. In the Metropolitan Board of Works v. The Vauxhall Bridge Company, supra, though in that proceeding (an action to enforce a rate not appealed against), the court refused to give any opinion as to whether there was any benefit from the sewers to the property of the company, they intimated that the commissioners were bound to consider (1) whether the company were liable to be rated at all, and (2) at what amount. Therefore, if they were rated in an undue proportion, having regard to the amount of benefit derived, they might have been relieved on appeal to the sessions. If the liability to be rated is tried by the rule laid down

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