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with any other council in carrying out the provisions of the Burial Acts, 1852 to 1885 (Local Government (Joint Committees) Act, 1897); and also to any joint expenses incurred in connection with the provision or use of joint fire-engines (Parish Fire-Engines Act, 1898), or of better postal telegraph facilities (Post Office Amendment Act, 1895, and Post Office (Guarantee) Act, 1898).

For any of the following purposes, viz.: (1) for the purchase of any land, or for the building of any buildings, which the parish council may lawfully purchase or build; (2) for any purpose authorized by such of the "adoptive Acts" above referred to as the parish council may have adopted; and (3) for any permanent work or other thing which the parish council may lawfully execute or do, the parish council may, with the consent of the county council and of the Local Government Board, borrow money in like manner and subject to the like conditions as a local authority may borrow under the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1875; the loan being secured on the poor rate and on other the revenues of the parish council, and the power to borrow being limited to one-half of the assessable value of the premises assessable within the parish (9).

The expenditure of parish councils and parish meetings. is severely restricted. A parish council may not, without the consent of a parish meeting, incur expenses or liabilities which will involve a rate exceeding threepence in the pound for any local financial year, or which will involve a loan. Further, a parish council's expenses (other than under the adoptive Acts) must not exceed a sum equal to a rate of sixpence in the pound for any year; and the expenses of a parish meeting, where there is no parish council, must not all together exceed a sum equal to a rate of sixpence in the pound. The expenses of both bodies are, subject to the provisions of the Act, to be paid out of the poor rate (r).

(7) Local Government Act, 1894, s. 12.

(r) Ibid. s. 11.

IV. URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICT COUNCILS. The Local Government Act, 1894, also makes further provision for the government of urban and rural sanitary districts. By section 21, urban sanitary authorities are to be styled “urban district councils," and the district of every urban authority is to be called an "urban district." It is also provided that there shall be a rural district council for every rural sanitary district, and that its district shall be called a "rural district," and further that the term "district council" shall comprise both urban and rural district councils, and that the term "county district" shall comprise both urban and rural districts. Urban and rural district councils have a similar history, a similar constitution, and similar powers. Certain important differences in their positions, however, will appear, which are due to the very great differences which exist between the areas which they respectively serve. Apart from formal law, there is more similarity between the working of an urban district council and a borough council, than between an urban and a rural district council. Both urban and rural district councils were originally merely sanitary authorities, and public health, in the widest sense of the term, is still their principal business. In each case the constituency consists of all parochial electors in the district. Neither as regards

electors or candidates is there any disqualification for sex. There are no aldermen on urban and rural district councils. District councillors are elected for a term of three years, one-third retiring annually, unless the council desires that all should retire simultaneously, and the county council makes an order to that effect. All rural district councillors are guardians of the poor; and in purely rural unions, the two bodies are practically identical, though the business of the district is always kept distinct from that of the union. By section 25 of the Local Government Act, 1894, there are transferred to every rural district council all the powers,

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duties, and liabilities, as well of the existing rural sanitary authority in the district, as of the highway authority. By section 26, every district council is charged with the protection of public rights of way, public rights of common, and public rights over road-side wastes; and (by s. 27) with the licensing of gang-masters, dealers in game, passage brokers, emigrant runners, and knackers' yards, the abolition of fairs and fixing of fair days, and the local execution of the Acts relating to petroleum and infant life protection. Moreover some functions previously performed by justices out of sessions are now transferred to district. councils. The Act contains also provisions (ss. 28, 29) for meeting the expenses of district councils. The principal financial resource of an urban district council is the general district rate; which it has power to levy by its own officials, and which is unlimited in amount. The expenses of a rural district council may be either general or special. In the latter case, they are charged on a particular parish or contributory place within the district; in the former, by a general levy on all the parishes in the district. But, in both cases, they are levied by the overseers along with, or as part of, the poor rate, not by the officials of the council. The Act further provides for greater simplicity and uniformity of administration, so that each parish may be in one county district, and so that each rural district may be in one administrative county (s. 36). For this purpose, and for convenience of administration, parishes may be grouped, or separated, and sanitary districts may be altered.

The chairman of a district council need not be a member of the council. He is appointed by the council for one year, and (unless a woman or personally disqualified by any Act) is ex officio justice of the peace for the county during his term of office.

A rural district council is an intermediate authority between a parish meeting or parish council, and a county council. But in an urban district there is no parish

meeting or parish council. The vestry therefore remains, though its power to appoint overseers, as well as the powers of overseers, may be transferred to the council of an urban district or borough by an Order of the Local Government Board (s. 34).

Consequently, some powers possessed by a parish council are not possessed by any local authority in an urban district. The Act therefore provides that the Local Government Board may, on the application of the council of an urban district or borough, confer upon that council any of the powers, duties, or liabilities of a parish council. Similarly, in order that a rural district council may be able to meet the demands of any part of its district which is urban in character, the Public Health Act of 1875 (s. 276), and the Local Government Act, 1894 (s. 28), provide, that the Local Government Board may, by general or special Order, confer urban powers upon rural district councils.

The highway powers and sanitary functions of district councils will be dealt with in the two succeeding chapters of this work.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE LAWS RELATING TO HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES.

A

THE law relating to highways, like the law relating to public health, was for some time in the middle part of the nineteenth century administered (in many districts of the kingdom) by "ad hoc" authorities, or boards, elected by the inhabitants to manage the roads of a local area. HIGHWAY, in the full sense, is a public road over which all the subjects of the realm have a right to pass and repass. The sub-soil of all roads is, by presumption of law, in the adjoining owner on either side of the road, usque ad medium filum viæ; but the presumption may of course be rebutted (a). The surface is vested in the highway authority; but it is difficult to say how far downwards the "surface" extends. The term "highway" is not restricted to any particular kind of way, and it often includes those roads or ways, e.g., church paths, which are common to the inhabitants of some particular parish or district only (b) ; and a road may be a public road or highway, although it may not be a thoroughfare. Highways exist by prescription or long user by the public, or have been constructed under the authority of local Acts of Parliament. Or again, they may have originated in the dedication of the owner of the soil over which they pass; for an owner may expressly dedicate a way over his land

(a) Pryor v. Petre, [1894] 2 Ch. 11.

(b) In the Highway Act, 1835, s. 5, the term 'highways" is made to include "all roads,

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"bridges (not being county "bridges), carriageways, cartways, horseways, bridleways, "footways, causeways, churchways, and pavements."

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