vention Acts of 1876 and 1893, and the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1922 (d), they are either local, or deal with the pollution of water used for special purposes. Thus section 1 of the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847 (e), subjects to a penalty not exceeding £5 every person throwing rubbish, &c., into any stream, reservoir or other works, or bathing in any stream, or causing the water of any sink, sewer, or drain, steam engine, boiler, or other filthy water to flow into any stream or reservoir belonging to any undertakers under the Act. Such person to forfeit in addition 20s. per diem for every day that such offence shall be committed. The Public Health Acts and other Acts (f) empowering local authorities (the place of which enactments has been taken by the Public Health Act, 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 55, and the Public Health Amendment Act, 1890, 53 & 54 Vict. c. 59) do not authorise local authorities to send sewage into the sea (g) or into a river to the prejudice of parties having established interests in the water (h). 46 Acts. By the Public Health Act, 1875 (i), s. 17, it is provided Public Health that Nothing in this Act shall authorise any local authority to make or use any sewer, drain, or outfall for the purpose of conveying sewage or filthy water into any natural stream or watercourse, or into any canal, pond or lake until such sewage or filthy water is freed from all excrements or other foul or noxious matter such as would affect or deteriorate the purity or quality of the water" (k). By section 332, it is provided, that (d) 39 & 40 Vict. c. 75; 56 & 57 Vict. c. 31; 13 & 14 Geo. 5. c. 16. (f) See post, Chap. V., pp. 343 et seq. (g) Hobart v. Southend-on-Sea Corporation (1906), 75 L. J. K. B. 305; 94 L. T. 337. (h) See Oldaker v. Hunt, 6 De G. M. & G. 376; Bidder v. Croydon, 6 L. T. (s.s.) 778; Att.-Gen. v. Luton Board of Health, 2 Jur. (N.S.) 180; Manchester Bly. v. Worksop, 23 Beav. 198; Spokes v. Banbury, L. R. 1 Eq. 42: Att.-Gen. Birmingham, 4 K. & J. 428; Cator v. Lewisham, 5 B. & S. 115; Reg. v. Darlington, 5 B. & S. 515; Goldsmid v. Tunbridge Wells, 35 L. J. Ch. 88; L. R. 1 Ch. 349; Att.-Gen. v. Leeds, L. R. 5 Ch. 583; Att.-Gen. v. Cockermouth, L. R. 18 Eq. 172; Att.-Gen. v. Richmond, L. R. 2 Eq. 306; Att.-Gen. V. Colney Hatch, L. R. 4 Ch. 146. See also Att.-Gen. v. Basingstoke, 45 L. J. Ch. D. 726; St. Helens Chemical Works v. St. Helens, 1 Ex. D. 196; Durrant v. Branksome Urban Council, [1897] 2 Ch. 291. (i) 38 & 39 Vict. c. 55. (k) This section applies to a watercourse which, after flowing in a defined channel, gradually filters away and is absorbed by the earth: MaxwellWillshire v. Bromley Rural Council (1918), 87 L. J. Ch. 241. It is no offence to put in noxious matter unless the water is made worse than before; but when the water is made worse, it is no excuse to say that elsewhere purer matter has been turned in and the general quality of the water improved. Att.-Gen. 5. Birmingham, &c., Drainage Board, [1908] 2 Ch. 551; 77 L. J. Ch. 836; [1910] 1 Ch. 45; 79 L. J. Ch. 137; 1912] A. C. 799. It was held in Dell v. Chesham U. D. C., [1921] 3 K. B. 427; 90 L. J. K. B. 1322, that washings from a tarmac road containing tar acid was filthy water, and in Durrant v. Branksome U. D. C., [1897] 2 Ch. 291, that sand and silt washed from a road was not sewage or filthy water within section 17. Publie wells. 66 Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorise any local authority to injuriously affect any reservoir, canal, river, or stream, or the feeder thereof, or the supply, quality, or fall of water contained in any reservoir, canal, river, or stream, or in the feeders thereof, in cases where any body of persons or person would, if this Act had not passed, have been entitled by law to prevent or to be relieved against the injuriously affecting such reservoir, canal, river, stream, feeders, or such supply, quality, or fall of water, unless the local authority first obtain the consent in writing of the body of persons or person so entitled as aforesaid." This provision comes in place of section 70 of the Local Government Act, 1858, and section 45 of the Nuisances Removal Act, 1855, both now repealed (1). By section 64 of the Act of 1875 it is enacted that, "All existing public cisterns, pumps, wells, reservoirs, conduits, aqueducts, and works used for the gratuitous supply of water to the inhabitants of the district of any local authority shall vest in and be under the control of such authority, and such authority may cause the same to be maintained and plentifully supplied with pure and wholesome water, or may substitute, maintain, and plentifully supply with pure and wholesome water other such works equally convenient; they may also (subject to the provisions of this Act) construct any other such works for supplying water for the gratuitous use of any inhabitants who choose to carry the same away, not for sale, but for their own private use (m). By (1) See 38 & 39 Vict. c. 55, s. 343; 54 & 55 Vict. c. 76, s. 142. (m) Under a similar section in the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1867, s. 89, sub-s. 4, "A well situated on private ground, the water of which has been used for domestic purposes gratuitously by the inhabitants in the vicinity for the prescriptive period, is a public well within the meaning of the section; and the local authority can enter on the land and do all acts to the well for continuing and maintaining it, which the inhabitants might have done before. And this, notwithstanding that there may be a company with a vested right to supply the inhabitants with water." Smith v. Archibald, 5 A. C. 489, H. L. Sc. (1880). See also St. Clair v. Magistrates of Dysart, Moor. 14, 519. In Holmfirth Local Board v. Shore, 59 J. P. 344, a trough or cistern receiving the overflow from a spring at some distance had been used by the public gratuitously for watering cattle and for domestic purposes for a period of over fifty years. The defendant erected a gate to prevent the access of cattle to the trough, and let a pipe into the bottom of the trough leading into his own house, where it terminated in a stopcock, and by means of this pipe and stopcock he could draw off as much water as he pleased. Held, that, under the Public Health Act, 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 55), the trough or cistern was a public well or work used for the gratuitous supply of water to the inhabitants of the district of the local authority in which it was situate, and that it was vested in, and was under the control of, the local authority by force of section 64 of the Public Health Act, 1875, and that the local authority might maintain an action in their own name in the county court against the defendant for damages for the interference caused by the insertion of the pipe in the bottom of the trough. In Dungarvan Guardians v. Mansfield, [1897] 1 Ir. R. 420, under a similar section in the Public Health (Ireland) Act (41 & 42 Vict. c. 52), where a well situate on private property was freely used without hindrance or interruption, as far back as living memory went, principally by the inhabitants of some section 69, local authorities, with sanction of the AttorneyGeneral, may take proceedings by indictment, bill in chancery, action or otherwise, for the purpose of restraining pollution (n). neighbouring houses, but also by all persons who had occasion to resort to the well, and a path existed during all that time affording access to the well from a public road, it was held that a right in the public to enter and take water from the well could not be supported by prescription, that it was too wide to be the subject of a custom, and that it could only arise from a dedication to the public by the owners from time immemorial of the land on which the well existed. But held, also, that Smith v. Archibald (5 A. C. 489) applied, and that the well was a public well within the Act; and that it was not necessary for the plaintiffs to establish such dedication, for if they could show that at the time of the passing of the Act the well was a public well used for the gratuitous supply of water to the inhabitants of the district, it became by the 74th section of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 52), vested in the plaintiffs; that to show that the well was then a public well the plaintiffs need not prove that the soil and freehold of the well itself was public property, for if the public had a servitude attached to the soil and freehold, by virtue of which they enjoyed the right of full access to the well to obtain its water for their use, it would be a public well within the meaning of the Act. A local authority has no power under the Public Health Act, 1875, to license a stranger to take water from a public well for commercial purposes: Mostyn V. Atherton, [1899] 2 Ch. 360; 68 L. J. Ch. 629; 81 L. T. 356; 48 W. R. 168. (n) The following cases deal with the duties and liabilities of local authorities under the Public Health Acts : A sanitary authority in whom sewers are vested under the Act of 1875, have only a limited ownership in them; they are not in the same position as to responsibility for fouling a stream as a private individual, because they cannot stop the sewers on account of the damage to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. And although, perhaps, the sanitary authority might obtain an injunction to restrain persons from using the sewers who had no right to do so, a landowner complaining of the nuisance cannot bring an action against them for not doing so; because an action cannot be maintained either at law or in equity to compel a person to bring an action for the purpose of restraining a nuisance which he cannot himself prevent. Where a sanitary authority have not themselves constructed sewers which are a nuisance, but only permitted them to be used by the inhabitants who have a prescriptive right to do so, they are not doing an act which can be restrained under the Public Health Acts or the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876. Reg. v. Staines Local Board, 60 L. T. 261; Thames Conservators v. Gravesend Corporation, [1910] 1 K. B. 442; 73 J. P. 351; Waltham Holy Cross Urban District Council v. Lee Conservancy Board (1910), 103 L. T. 192; but see Rochford Rural District Council v. Port of London Authority, [1914] 2 K. B. 916; 83 L. J. K. B. 1066, where Avory, J., considered these cases no longer binding, as being inconsistent with the decision of the Court of Appeal in Kirkheaton District Council v. Ainley, [1892] 2 Q. B. 274, and Yorkshire West Riding Council v. Holmfirth Urban Sanitary Authority, [1894] 2 Q. B. 42. The duty of a local authority under the Public Health Act, 1875, to make such sewers as may be necessary for effectually draining their district for the purposes of the Act, can only be enforced by complaint to the Minister of Health under section 299 of the Act, and neglect of the duty or neglect to enlarge them to meet altered conditions does not give a right of action to an individual whose property has been injured by such neglect Robinson v. Mayor and Corporation Workington, [1897] 1 Q. B. 619, C. A.; Pasmore v. Oswaldtwistle Urban Council. [1898] A. C. 387; Hesketh v. Birmingham Corporation, [1924] 1 K. B. 260. See also Kinson Pottery Co. v. Poole Corporation, [1899] 2 Q. B. 41: Brown v. Dunstable Corporation, [1899] 2 Ch. 378. See also 56 & 57 Viet. c. 31; Att.-Gen. v. Guardians of Poor of Dorking Union, 20 Ch. D. 595; Att.-Gen. v. Clerkenwell Vestry, [1891] 3 Ch. 527. The duty of a local authority under section 15 of the Public Health Act, 1875, to make such sewers as may be necessary for draining their district for the purposes of the Act extends to the making of sewers sufficient not merely to carry off the ordinary sewage, but also in certain circumstances the effluents from the manufactories in the district. The only remedy for neglect to do this is by an application under section 299 to the Local Government Board, and it cannot be enforced by an action for a mandamus: Peebles v. Oswaldtwistle The Public Health Act, 1875, has been amended by 53 & 54 Vict. c. 59 (Public Health Amendment Act, 1890), section 47 of which prohibits the throwing or placing or suffering to be thrown or placed into any river, stream, or watercourse within any district Urban District Council, [1897] 1 Q. B. 625. Though an action will not lie against a local authority for misfeasance or neglect under the Public Health Acts, it will lie for damages caused by acts done by the authority themselves : Harrington (Earl of) v. Derby Corporation, ante, p. 170. The permission of a local authority to use a drain for the passage of surface and slop water does not authorise its use for every kind of sewage matter, and such unauthorised use will be restrained by injunction (Public Health Act, 1875, s. 27); Graham v. Wroughton, [1901] 2 Ch. 451, C. A.; Kinson Pottery Co. v. Poole Corporation, [1899] 2 Q. B. 41. A householder has an absolute right under section 21 of the Act of 1875 to connect his drains with a sewer subject only to the regulations prescribed by the local authority, and an injunction will not be granted to restrain the local authority from allowing future connections to be made with their sewers: Brown v. Dunstable Corporation, [1899] 2 Ch. 378; Ainley v. Kirkheaton Local Board (1891), 60 L. J. Ch. 734. Though an injunction will not be granted so as to interfere with prescriptive rights to pass sewage into and along the sewers of a local authority, nor to oblige the authority to stop up connections which they have sanctioned, an injunction must be granted to restrain the authority from authorising or directing any sewage to flow or be discharged on to the lands of a landowner from sewers vested in them so as to cause a nuisance: Brown v. Dunstable Corporation, [1899] 2 Ch. 378. Where a local board for valuable consideration permits an owner of premises without their district to connect a drain with their sewers, or where they themselves make the connection without imposing terms on him under section 22 of the Act of 1875, they cannot afterwards impose terms for the maintenance of that connection: East Barnet Valley District Council v. Stallard, [1909] 2 Ch. 555; 14 S. J. 30; 26 T. L. R. 22. In Charles v. Finchley Local Board (1883), 23 Ch. D. 767, it was held by Pearson, J., that, although the Local Board could not be compelled to construct an improved system of drainage except by mandamus, nor to bring an action for an injunction against a third party, particularly in cases where the legal right was doubtful; still, where the third party was acting in violation of an agreement entered into with the Local Board to pass surface water only through the pipe, and where no special inconvenience would be caused to other neighbours, the plaintiff was entitled to an injunction against the defendants on the ground that they could themselves prevent any nuisance being caused by stopping up the pipe which was being used in contravention of the agreement under the powers given them by the Public Health Act, and this notwithstanding that they would be preventing the third party from exercising his right of passing surface water only through the pipe: Att.-Gen. v. Guardians of Dorking, 20 Ch. D. 595, distinguished. In Kinson Pottery Co., Lim. v. Poole Corporation, [1899] 2 Q. B. 41, the appellants were summoned by the sanitary authority of a borough for noncompliance with a notice to abate a nuisance caused by turning slop and scullery water from twelve houses, owned by the appellants, into a drain constructed by a highway to receive the surface water of the highway, which emptied into an empty ditch. According to the plan deposited with the sanitary authority when the houses were built by the appellants' predecessor in title, the houses would have been drained into cesspools, but cesspools to receive the slop and scullery water had not been constructed. No sewer had been constructed by the sanitary authority by means of which the houses could be drained. The houses were separately occupied, and were not within the same curtilages. The justices made an order to abate the nuisance by disconnecting the drains of the houses from the surface-water drain, and making cesspools for the houses. On a Case Stated : Held (by Darling and Channell, JJ.), that the sanitary authority were not bound, under the Public Health Act, 1875, s. 15, to provide a sewer to drain the appellants' houses, that the surface-water drain, though for some purposes a sewer within the meaning of section 4, was not a sewer into which the in which Part III. of the Act is adopted of " any cinders, ashes, bricks, stones, rubbish, dust, filth, or other matter which is likely to cause annoyance." Every person offending against this enactment is liable to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings for every fresh offence. By section 21 of the Gasworks Clauses Act, 1847 (10 Vict. c. 15), and by section 68 of the Public Health Act, 1875, any person engaged in the manufacture of gas who shall cause or suffer to be brought, or to flow into any stream, reservoir, aqueduct, pond, or place for water, or into any drain or pipe communicating therewith, any washing or other substance produced in making or supplying gas, or wilfully does any act connected with the making or supplying of gas, whereby the water of such stream, &c., is fouled, shall forfeit for each offence £200, and a further sum of £20 per diem for every day during which the offence is committed (o). The same penalty for wilfully corrupt appellants were entitled to empty their drains, that the nuisance was caused by the want of a structural convenience within the meaning of section 96, and therefore the defendants, as owners, were liable. In Meader v. West Cowes Local Board, [1892] 3 Ch. 18, C. A., M. built ten houses, laid a large pipe drain at the back of them, and made a drain into it from each house. The large drain ran into a cesspool on M.'s land, near the houses, and was then carried on for a few yards through M.'s land till it reached the foreshore of a tidal river, and then, after passing for a short distance through the foreshore, discharged into the river. No licence to drain through the foreshore had been obtained, and it was not proved that M.'s scheme of drainage had been approved by the local board. After some time the lessee of the foreshore built upon it, and stopped the mouth of the drain. which it was admitted he was entitled to do. The overflow from the cesspool being thus stopped, the cesspool caused a serious nuisance. M. brought his action against the local board to restrain them from permitting the nuisance to continue, alleging that the structure was a sewer and the cesspool a thing belonging thereto," within the meaning of the Public Health Act, 1875, and was therefore vested in the local board, and that they were bound to keep it in order : Held, by the Court of Appeal, affirming the decision of Chitty, J., that this was not a sewer within the meaning of the Act, for that the continuation through the foreshore, which M. had no right to make, must be left out of account, and then there was nothing left but a set of pipes terminating in a pit on M.'s own ground, and, as they did not carry the sewage away, they could not be considered a sewer. Where in 1885, with the consent of a local authority, a connection had been made with the sewers of the authority for the conveyance of effluent from a factory, it was held that the Court could restrain the local authority from cutting off the connection with the sewers when it could not be shown that the case came within the proviso to section 7 of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876 Eastwood v. Honley Urban Council, [1901] 1 Ch. 645. But where the manufacturers sent into the sewers liquid prejudicial to the sewage system without the knowledge or consent of the sanitary authority, the Court restrained them from so doing: Liverpool Corporation v. Coghill & Son, [1918] 1 Ch. 307. . (0) A private Act of Parliament enacted that No person shall without the consent of the commissioners . open any new drain or other work into any of the drainage works of the commissioners . . . and no person shall cause any filthy or unwholesome water, or washings of manufactories or mines, or other foul or poisonous liquid to flow into any watercourse within the jurisdiction of the commissioners," and imposed penalties for the violation of the prohibitions. The section contained a proviso that "This section shall |