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constant service, which is practically universal in their district,
some 99 per cent, of the houses being supplied on this system.
This Company has decided, on sanitary and other grounds,
not to disconnect the water from houses in their district on
account of non-payment of the rate, but to have recourse to
the necessary procedure at the Police Court for the recovery of
arrears. Proceedings were taken by the company, in 1893,
against six of their customers for non-payment of the waterrate,
and, needless to say, the presiding magistrate, at the
North London Police Court, made an order for payment of the
amount due, with costs. It is to be hoped that the other
companies will adopt the laudable practice thus initiated.
Early in the current year, your Vestry, in common with
other Sanitary Authorities, received a letter from the Vestry of
Fulham, suggesting co-operation in an endeavour to obtain "an
alteration of the law, so as to deprive water companies of the
power, which they at present possess, of rendering premises
insanitary by cutting off the water supply." The letter was
referred to the Sanitary Committee, who reported that "this
question had been under the consideration of the Vestry upon
various occasions in past years," and that they " thought it
desirable to submit a short summary of the proceedings" with
relation thereto, as follows :—
" In 1882, the question as to the power of Water Companies to cut off the
water supply if the rate was not paid, was brought forward by the Medical
Officer of Health in reports presented by him to the Sanitary Committee,
upon whose recommendation the Vestry passed a resolution to the
effect that the sections of the Water Acts, confeiring upon Water Companies
the power of cutting off water, should be repealed, and that
other powers to enable the companies to recover rates should be substituted
therefor.
" The matter was again brought before the Vestry in 1884, by the action of
one of the Water Companies supplying Kensington, whereby 80 people,
residing in a Mews, were deprived of the supply for which they had paid
the landlord in their weekly rents, he, however, not having paid the
rate. This action led to communications being addressed by the Vestry