Existing exemptions lighting or allowance shall be observed and allowed in levying any sewers rate under this Act. CXLV. Provided also, That in every parish or part of land from of a parish in which at the time of the passing of this Act the Act of the session holden in the third and fourth years of King William the Fourth, chapter ninety, is in force, the owners and occupiers of houses, buildings, and rates to be allowed (n). By the 10 & 11 Vict. c. 217, s. 15, (repealed) it was provided that no rate should be levied by the Surrey and Kent commissioners in respect of any land, houses, buildings, &c., so long as there should be no work or drainage of the commissioners, within 200 hundred yards of the same. The question arises, Does that exemption from rateability still exist? It is believed that it is not allowed in practice; but the liability of property so rated must be determined on the strict construction of this and the enactments in the former Acts. In Luscomb v. Local Board of Health for Plymouth, 27 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 299, it was held that under sect. 88, of the Public Health Act, 11 & 12 Vict. c. 63, property was entitled to exemption only in respect of its kind and not in respect of its locality. But it must be borne in mind that the words in the section of the Public Health Act referred to are "any kind of property," whereas the present section uses the expression "any property" only. The amounts collected in the several parishes may be materially affected in case of any extensive introduction of differential rates, and it is extremely desirable that some clear and explicit legislative provision should be made defining the relative amounts at which various descriptions of property which may be entitled to allowance or reduction, should be rated. This becomes the more necessary when it is considered that sewers rates are now devoted to very many objects wholly differing from those to which they were originally applicable. The court, in Metropolitan Board of Works v. Vauxhall Bridge Company, 26 L. J. (N. S.) Q. B. 253, seemed to think it reasonable that property in the parish should be made to contribute to the expenses of general sanitary regulations if the law would allow it, but that it did not. It is certainly difficult to discern why all the cost of new thoroughfares and parks promoted by the metropolitan board, the expenses of passing the Metropolitan Gas Act, and other matters having no sort of connection with sewers, should be exclusively thrown upon a rate the amount of which may be materially affected by exemptions resting on grounds which appear wholly foreign to such expenditure. (n) In Reg. v. Vauxhall Waterworks Company, 6 E. & B. 1108,3 Jur. (N.S.) 411, the company were held to be rateable for property other than land shall be rated to every lighting rate made under this Act at a rate in the pound three times greater than that at which the owners and occupiers of land shall be rated in such lighting rate; and in every parish or part of a parish in which under any other Act land is now rated in respect of expenses of lighting at a less amount in proportion to the annual value thereof than houses, or is now wholly exempted from being rated in respect of such expenses, such land shall continue to be rated to every lighting rate made under this Act at such less amount, or, where such land is now wholly exempted as aforesaid, shall be wholly exempted from such rate. non-pay be distrained CLXVI. In case the amount ordered by any such Overseers on order as aforesaid to be paid by the overseers of any ment of the parish be not paid in manner directed by such order and rate shall within the time therein specified for that purpose, it upon; shall be lawful for any justice of the peace, upon the complaint by the vestry or board, or by any person authorized by them for this purpose, to issue his warrant for levying the amount, or so much thereof as may their mains and pipes under this section on the lower scale. In Peto and others v. the parish of West Ham, 28 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 240, it was held (dissentiente, Erle, J.) that a wet dock or basin of ninety-five acres was properly ejusdem generis with the houses and buildings mentioned in the Act, and that the occupiers were rateable at the higher amount. Before the passing of the Metropolis Local Management Act, the East London Waterworks Company had been assessed to a lighting rate under a local Act regulating the lighting of the hamlet of Mile End Old Town, but on appeal had been held by the court not to be rateable to such rate, and the court of Queen's Bench decided that by the terms of this section they were exempt from liability to be rated under its provisions; East London Waterworks Company v. The Overseers of the Poor of the Hamlet of Mile End Old Town, 29 L. J. (N. S.) M. C. 66. Where part only of a parish was before this Act exempted, under the 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 90, the other part is not entitled to this exemption, but must be assessed at the higher rate; R. v. Fitch, 1 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 327. and in default of sufficient distress the arrears may be levied on the parish. Provision for cases where the be in arrear, by distress and sale of the goods of all or any of the said overseers; and in case the goods of all the overseers be not sufficient to pay the same, the arrears thereof shall be added to the amount of the next levy which shall be directed to be made in such parish for the purposes of this Act, and shall be collected by the like methods. CLXVII. Where the vestry of any parish mentioned in schedule (A.) to this Act make the rate for the relief Vestry of any of the poor in such parish, such vestry shall from time schedule (A.) to time raise and levy the sums required for defraying parish in make the poor rate. Special per- cases (0). their expenses of executing this Act in like manner as overseers are required to do with respect to the sums for which orders are made upon them by any vestry under this Act, and shall, in raising such sums, act upon the like principles and have the like discretion as any vestry making orders upon overseers under this Act; and where any parishes maintain their poor in common by a common rate, the orders for levying any money by this Act directed to be made on the overseers of such parishes shall be made on the overseers by law authorized to levy such rate thereon, and such sums shall be levied by such overseers, in manner provided by this Act, as if such parishes were one parish. CLXVIII. Any vestry or district board may, in case of any default or neglect of any overseers to pay the amount required by any such order as aforesaid within the time and in the manner directed by such order, and the said metropolitan board may, in case of any default or neglect of any vestry or district board to pay (0) The power to levy includes the power of making a rate, and where a rate made by assessors appointed by the metropolitan board under this provision is good on the face of it, the ratepayer cannot, on the summons for non-payment, insist that the board had no power to issue their precept, and that the appointment of the assessors was invalid, as this is matter of appeal only. The rate made by such assessors may be the amount required by any precept of the said metropolitan board within such time and in such manner as may be therein mentioned, appoint persons to levy any money required by such vestry or board for the purposes of this Act in any parish or district, and such persons shall proceed in the same manner, and have the same powers, remedies, and privileges, and be subject to the same regulations and penalties, with reference to the levying of such money, as any overseers would have had or been subject to with reference to levying any such money in pursuance of an order of the vestry or district board, or, where the same might be levied by the vestry under this Act, as such vestry would have had or been subject to with reference to levying the same. (p) for deduction by sewers rate. CLXIX. As between landlord and tenant, every tenant, Provision whether his tenancy have commenced before or after the passing of this Act, and who if this Act had not been tenants of passed would have been entitled to deduct against or to (9) be repaid by his landlord any sum paid by such tenant on account of the sewers rate, shall in like manner be entitled to deduct against or to be repaid by his landlord any sewers rate levied on him under this Act. appealed against in the same manner as a rate made by overseers under s. 161. The question of whether the rate has been duly published is one of fact, and if there be any evidence to support the decision of the magistrate, the court will not interfere; Empson v. Metropolitan Board of Works; 25 J. P. 677; 3 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 624. (p) See the provision in 21 & 22 Vict. c. 104, s. 15, post, as to the making of rates by metropolitan board on default of vestries, &c., in payment of sums assessed for metropolis main drainage rate. (4) The sewers rate is a landlord's tax, and in the absence of any agreement binding the tenant to pay such rate, it may be deducted from the rent. A covenant to pay all rates includes sewers rates. See Waller v. Andrews, 3 M. & W. 312; Bennett v. Womack, 7 B. & C. 627. Sums to be assessed upon the city and other parts of lis by metropolitan board for defraying expenses. Provisions for defraying Expenses of Metropolitan Board. [CLXX. (a) The metropolitan board of works shall from time to time ascertain and assess upon the City of London and the other parts of the metropolis the sums the metropo- which in their judgment ought to be charged upon the said city and such other parts respectively for defraying the expenses of the said board in the execution of this Act, (b) having regard to the annual value of the property in the several parts of the metropolis, and having regard, in the case of expenditure on works of drainage, to the benefit (c) derived from such expenditure by the several parts of the metropolis affected thereby; and any such sum may be so assessed wholly or in part in respect of expenses already incurred or of expenses to be thereafter incurred; and for the purposes of such assess (a) This section is repealed by the 5th section of the 25 & 26 Vict. c. 102, post, which contains new provisions with respect to assessments by the metropolitan board. See the 21 & 22 Vict. c. 104, s. 10, et seq., as to assessments for the metropolis main drainage rate. (b) See note to s. 144, ante, as to expenses of legal proceedings. By the Thames Embankment Act, 1862, post, Appendix, the expenses of repairing the Thames embankment are to be paid out of monies raised for defraying the ordinary expenses of the board. See s. 22. The Metropolitan Gas Act, 1860, 23 & 24 Vict. c. 125, s. 6, directed that the costs, &c., of, and incident to its passing, and preliminary thereto, should be paid by the metropolitan board out of monies to be levied by them from the several vestries, &c. See Wyatt v. The Metropolitan Board of Works, 31 L. J. (N. S.) Q. B. 217. (c) The court of Queen's Bench refused to issue a certiorari to bring up an order of assessment made under this section and the precept issued pursuant thereto, the ground of the application being that the parish on which the assessment was made derived no benefit from a part of the expenditure included in it; Ex parte Vestry of St. Marylebone, 22 J. P. 799. See now 25 & 26 Vict. c. 102, s. 5, post, as to criterion for assess ments. |