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In 20 other cases in which proceedings had been instituted the
summonses were withdrawn by the Vestry on payment of costs by
the defendants, the works necessary to abate the nuisances having
been executed.
The fines and costs imposed amounted to £ 72 is.
The Vestry appealed against the decision of the Justices in the
case against Serf, the owner of 36, Star Road, in which they held that
there was no evidence that a pipe which took the drainage of four houses
was a "drain," although it was laid in accordance with a plan which had
been approved by the Surveyor of the late Fulham District Board of
Works, and it was proved that the custom of the late Fulham District
Board was not to make entries of the approval of plans for combined
drainage in their books, but for the Surveyor, upon the approval being
given by the Committee, to make a note of the fact upon the application
of the builder. The special case stated by the Kensington Justices
was argued before the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Wills, who
directed the case to be transmitted to the Justices for the further hearing
of the summons, with the opinion of the Court that there was evidence
that the pipe in question was a "drain" within the meaning of the
Metropolis Local Management Act, 1855, and not a sewer.
At the further hearing the Justices, after hearing the evidence, still
held that the pipe in question was a sewer, although since the first
hearing of the case it had been held by Justices Wills and Kennedy, in
the case of Geen v. Newington Vestry, that where a drain had been
constructed in accordance with a plan initialled by the Surveyor, although
there was no entry relating to it in any minute book of the Vestry, there
was " abundant evidence " that it had been constructed by order of the
Vestry as part of a combined system of drainage within the meaning of
Sections 74 and 250 of the Metropolis Management Act, and was consequently
a "drain."
Since the Justices' decision in this case all summonses ordered
by the Vestry have been applied for at the West London Police Court.
SANITARY STAFF.
The appointment in December of an additional Sanitary Inspector
to supervise houses let in lodgings, raises the staff of Inspector to 7,
including the Drainage Inspector, and there are now to each Sanitary