extensive limitations calculated for their benefit?

Ferretted

in recent years out of London centres, the poor have found healthier homes and better air in the low-lying suburban levels. Moreover, it is to their advantage to be near the factories, docks, and works, where their employment lies, and necessarily these border the river.

If by the edict of some earlier County Council London had been shorn of her low-level poor-in Rotherhithe, Deptford, Bermondsey, Plumstead, Shadwell, Stepney, Millwall, &c., we might to-day have had a pleasure Metropolis, some stupendous Bath or Buxton; but where would have been the capital of the British workers, the centre of the world's markets?

We gather from these clauses what the Council's precepts are; but what is their practice when judging their own convenience as employers and their workmen's welfare?

The Council have riverside deodorising works, both at North Woolwich and Crossness. The entire area (70 acres) is not only below Trinity high-water level, but the whole of one site is practically reclaimed from the Thames, and but for the river wall it would be a lagoon flooded every ordinary tide 5 or 6 feet deep, and at spring tides 2 feet more. Yet at each the Council have built marsh homes for their workmen, giving their works and workers an advantage which may fairly be claimed as good for all riverside interests, so that the labourers should be at liberty to live near their work if they please. With the Council the marsh dwellings are compulsory.

Again test the Council's action as owners of low-lying lands.

The Council's costly Blackwall Tunnel scheme would have tapped a district doomed by this Bill to sterility, the whole area being several feet below Trinity high water. The Council have, in buying the land for approaches

wisely added sufficient building depth on either side to secure to themselves not only the first fruits, but all the "betterment." Upon these frontages an extensive scheme of workers' dwellings is contemplated, some 50 such dwellings close by being already nearly completed, built at the Council's cost under their Works Department.

The Council grant themselves the necessary "license" to build on their own low-lying lands, and their engineers' "conditions" can be amply satisfied with the ratepayers to draw upon.

Whether for the relief of the Tunnel contractors, who secure a free shoot for their soil, or to better the sites for dwellings, the new Tunnel road has been raised some feet above the abutting lands. The Council have constructed a central brick conduit for the drainage of their own frontages, but at such a high level-barely scratching the old surface -as to exclude all others from benefit.

All "betterment" is not only thus monopolised, but "worsement" is inflicted on the abutting lands, not only by being severed by the raised road and sewer, but all access to the new road is threatened by the future unbroken ranks of the Council's dwellings. By this action freedom from competition is secured (if competition is possible with such a mighty owner), whilst the benefit to the Council's property of open lands at the rear is enforced without cost, these lands being thus condemned to a lasting rural rent, whilst bearing the burden of urban taxation, contributing, in fact, their share towards the Council's experiments in landlordism. THOMAS DINWIDDY, Fellow.

Note on the Case of "The Mayfair Property Company b. Johnston."*

The case of The Mayfair Property Company v. Johnston, decided on the 1st February, is a curious example of a new

.

For a report of this case, see pp. 402-404, infra.

application of the provisions of an old statute. The facts of the case were simple. Two adjoining owners were tenants in common of a party wall dividing two houses and gardens in Hyde Park Gate. There had been some previous litigation as to whether the wall in question was a party wall or not, and it was decided that it was. Now, the Mayfair Property Company pulled down their house, and afterwards proceeded to pull down the garden wall, being the wall in dispute. They did so partly, and then rebuilt it, and erected a high building so that the outside of their wall came up to the centre of the garden wall. This they had no right to do, because one tenant in common cannot, without the consent of the other tenant in common, build upon a wall of that kind or interfere in any way with the tenancy in common. Certain rights are given by the Metropolitan Building Acts to adjoining owners where the wall dividing adjoining "buildings" comes within the definition in these Acts, but where these Acts do not apply then the adjoining owners are left to their common law rights. The decision to which attention is now directed will chiefly, therefore, affect adjoining owners in the provinces, unless there are any Local Acts affecting the question.

The Mayfair Property Company, having thus put themselves in the wrong, adopted a novel expedient to put themselves right again. They commenced a partition action—that is, an action claiming that the wall should be divided into two parts, each owner taking his part. The plaintiffs claimed that the wall in question should be divided longitudinally, and they made this claim under the old statutes of Henry VIII., and they succeeded. But they were made to pay the costs of the unsuccessful defendants, because their pulling down the wall was certainly a high-handed proceeding.

The application of the Partition Acts to the everyday

practice of surveyors must depend upon a knowledge of the different kind of party walls; but where it is known that the owners of a party wall are tenants in common, then (in cases where Building Acts do not apply) an adjoining owner desiring to build upon a party wall, and failing to get the consent of his adjoining owner, can commence an action for partition, and may thus obtain a division of the wall and a right to do what he pleases with his half so divided, whether by building on it or what not, provided that he does not injure his neighbour's half. No doubt, where any easements of support exist, these would be safeguarded by the order for partition, and when complicated rights of that kind existed an order for partition might possibly be refused; but, nevertheless, the application for a partition may be useful in particular and exceptional cases, and especially where the expense of an action for partition would more than compensate for the difficulties or expense of building a new wall.

Party walls are of four kinds, for which Watson v. Gray, L.R. 14 Ch. D. 192, is an authority:

:

(1.) A wall of which the two adjoining owners are tenants in common.

(2.) A wall divided into two longitudinal strips, one belonging to each of the adjoining owners.

(3.) A wall entirely belonging to one of the adjoining owners, but subject to an easement or right in the other to have it maintained as a dividing wall between the two tenements.

(4.) A wall divided longitudinally into two halves, each half being subject to a cross easement in favour of the owner of the other half.

A partition, therefore, of a wall of the first kind, where cross easements exist, would convert the wall into a party wall of the fourth kind. This conversion might be of advantage, because then each owner would have a right to deal with

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his own half, provided he did not injure the other half. example, therefore one owner could not pull down his half to the destruction of the stability of the other half, nor could he raise on his half to such an extent as to impose an additional burden on his neighbour's half. But in certain cases the knowledge that the Courts will apply the Partition Acts to the division of a party wall may be very useful to surveyors. Knowledge of power is always useful, and it may be in this case, even as a lever to induce an adjoining owner to consent to a reasonable extension of the use of the common property. A. A. HUDSON, Associate.

Note on the Working of the Small Holdings Act.

The Agricultural Holdings Act, 1892, was, no doubt, an honest attempt to establish small holdings on a considerable scale, and to increase the numbers of the landowning class, but, so far, it has only proved that among the British peasant class there is not evident any great disposition or ability to buy land, and experience shews that the area on which the principle of small holdings can be successfully applied is very limited. Those members of county councils who have sat in committee to hear applications for land under the Act have been sadly disappointed to find what a very small number of applicants are willing to accept their holdings under the purchase system. The greater number of them are only desirous of renting for short terms, and the general wish appears to be for a yearly tenancy. This may arise from the fact that the future of agriculture is still uncertain, and it is impossible to say whether agriculturists have touched the bottom of the depression. A labourer who has saved a little money, and who aspires to become a small landowner, may well hesitate to embark his savings