AN ACT

FOR PROMOTING THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ACT.

In the first Report from the Commissioners appointed by her Majesty for the purpose of inquiring into the state of large towns and populous districts, dated June 27, 1844, and which Report was signed by the Duke of Buccleuch, the present Duke of Newcastle, Robert Slaney, George Graham, H. T. De la Beche, Lyon Playfair, D. B. Reid, Richard Owen, W. Denison, J. R. Martin, James Smith, Robert Stephenson, and W. Cubitt, various important facts were set forth, and many highly valuable suggestions offered. They agreed in the little commonly understood, yet most important fact, "that defective drainage, neglect of house and street cleansing, ventilation, and imperfect supplies of water, contribute to produce atmospheric impurities which affect the general health and physical condition of the population, generating acute, chronic, and ultimately organic disease, especially scrofulous affections and consumption, in addition to the fevers and other forms of disease to which public attention has hitherto been chiefly directed by previous sanitary inquiries."

B

The Commissioners, after giving an accurate description of the existing evils resulting from bad house drainage, imperfect water supplies, and intramural burials, and the state of the then existing law with regard to those subjects, concluded by expressing an opinion that "it would be necessary to have recourse to the aid of the legislature for further enactments before the improvements so much desired can be fully accomplished."-1st Rep., p. xxvi.

A still more elaborate Report from the same Commissioners was made to her Majesty on the 3rd of February, 1845, in which they further remark, at its conclusion, that the recommendations contained in their Report will, if sanctioned by the legislature, tend to diminish the evils into which it had been their duty to inquire.

The

At page 12 of this Report the Commissioners give a brief digest of the state of the law with regard to drainage. They remark, "It is apparent on a review of the course of legislation on this subject, that most serious attention was given to works of drainage from the earliest periods of our constitutional history. earliest fundamental provisions have been based upon the footing that such works, as well as measures for the maintenance of the free flow of running waters, were of general public and national, rather than of exclusively local, consideration. It is held, by the first legal authorities, to be one of the prerogatives of the Crown to issue commissions for the protection of the population, by the enforcement of proper works of drainage, and this prerogative appears to have been exercised by the issue of special commissions, as well after as before the passing of statutory provisions on the subject. The

intervention of the Crown was often urgently sought for the public protection against the injurious encroachments of private interests upon the great public watercourses for mill power or for fishing-weirs. The XVIth chapter of Magna Charta is a defence of the public rights against the growth of such encroachments. The fourth statute of the 25 Edw. III. c. 4, provides for the putting down of mills, weirs, dams, and other obstructions, and commissions appear to have been issued from time to time to see to the execution of the laws provided thereon.

The laws and customs of Romney Marsh appear to have been established at a very early period, as the principles upon which all proceedings under these commissions should be conducted. In these laws it is recited that they were settled by a learned judge, Henry of Bathe, under a special commission from the Crown, in the reign of Henry III.

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'By counsel of our Lord the King, it was provided, that there might be sent the justices of our Lord the King, to ordaine and depose that which should be meete to appease those strifes;" "so that Henry de Bathe was sent thither, and all the tenants of the said Marsh had summons of forty days," &c. &c.; "the said Henry having seene the walls and water-courses aforesaid," &c., "and the said Henry going in person to these parts ordained," &c. The tenor of other commissions runsAssignavimus vos ad supervidendum wallias et fossata, etc., et ad inquirendum per quorum defecta hujus damnum contigit ibidem.”

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In illustration of the earlier commissions issued under the Crown, which were not confined to works of drainage only, or to a judicial intervention, but were extended

to the formation of new roads, and the maintenance of old ones, and other public works, we have found a com

:

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* E. g. Patent 51 Edw. III. m. 41. "Edwardus Dei gratia Rex Angliæ et Franciæ et dominus Hiberniæ, dilectis sibi Johanni Herlyngton, Radulpho Gamel, Willielmo Pechel, Waltero Pigge, Hugoni Feukson et Willielmo......de Yakesle salutem. Sciatis quod concessimus vobis in auxilium dictæ villæ et viarum eidem adjacentium paviandæ, quod a die confectionis præsentium usque ad finem trium annorum proximo sequentium plenarie completorum capiatis in dicta villa consuetudines subscriptas, videlicit, &c. Et ideo vobis mandamus quod prædictas consuetudines usque ad finem termini prædicti capiatis sicut prædictum est, completo autem termino dictorum trium annorum dicta consuetudines penitus cassentur et deleantur."-Inquisition ad quod damnum, 12 Edw. II. Writ to inquire whether the causeway and bridges in the way called Longfore, between Bleccheleye and Newport, in the county of Salop, are so broken as to be dangerous, and if any certain persons are bound to repair them, and if they be not, whether it will be to the prejudice of the king or others, if he grant a frontage for the repair.--Patent Roll, 10 Edw. III., p. 1. Apppointment of commissioners to survey the state of the walls, ditches, sewers, bridges, &c., on the sea coast in Leveryngham, Nenton, and Wysebech in co. Camb. (except the field called Rummere), and to inquire by whose default they have become ruinous, and to distrain persons holding lands, tenements, fisheries, &c., there to repair them.--Inq. ad quod. dam., 34 Edw. III. Writ to Henry Peverell, custos of Southampton, ordering him to inquire concerning defects, &c., in the walls of the town, and concerning porches and gardens made on the walls.-All gorces, mills, weirs, stanks, stakes, and kiddels, set up in great rivers, in the time of Edward I., and after, shall be pulled down, and sheriff shall do execution. (25 Edw. III.)—Agnes de Dunlegh prays the king to cause certain walls to be repaired, to restrain the overflow of the Thames, which he was bound to do in virtue of a purchase made by him of messuages, &c., in a place called La Rofere contre La Tour, in Southwark. (4 Edw. III.)--Petition for constraining the mayor, &c., of Cambridge, to cause the town ditch, &c., to be cleansed. (52 Hen. III.)—A confirmation of the statutes of levying and straitening weirs, mills, stanks, stakes, kiddels, &c. (1 Hen. V.)—A general commission of sewers proposed and enacted. (2 Hen. VI.)—Dismes, &c., respited for two years to the inhabitants of Malberthorpe, co. Linc., on account of their charges to

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mission of the third year of Henry IV. for providing the means of conveying pure water to the inhabitants of Kingston-upon-Hull, as well as for draining that town, and removing impure sea or marsh water. The practice of issuing commissions for previous local inquiry and survey appears to have been discontinued on the passing of the Act 6th of Henry VI. c. 5, to regulate the issue of commissions.

The preamble to the 23 Hen. VIII., c. 5, commonly known as the Bill of Sewers, sets forth in the language usually employed in the preambles of those days, that Henry VIII.," like a virtuous and most gracious prince, nothing earthly so highly weighing as the advancing of the common profit, wealth, and commodity of this his realm, considering the daily great damages and losses which have happened in many and divers parts of this his realm, as well by reason of the outrageous flowings, surges, and courses of the sea in and upon marsh grounds and other low places heretofore, through politic wisdom won and made profitable for the great commonwealth of this realm, as also by occasion of land-waters and other outrageous springs, in and upon meadows, pastures, and other low grounds adjoining to rivers, floods, and other water-courses, (see 10 & 11 Vict. c. 70. s. 2,) and over that by and through mills, milldams, wears, fishgarths, kedels, gores, gotes, flood-gates,

defend themselves from being inundated by the sea. (9 Hen. VI.)-Abbess of Denys, and the master of the hospital of Strode, prayed to answer for neglecting to embank their land near Rochester Bridge. (11 and 12 Hen. VI.)—From Collections of Records and Precedents, by T. Duffus Hardy, Esq.

* Report on Hull, Second Report, vol. ii.