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(b) Before making any drain, or altering the level or course of,
or making any addition to, or extending or curtailing any
existing drain or any branch drain, a plan of the proposed
drain and any existing drain shall be deposited with the Vestry
or District Board by the person intending to make such drain
or to alter or amend any existing drain,—
and that a copy thereof be sent to the London County Council.
At the close of the year the Council was promoting a bill in
Parliament dealing with the question of combined drainage, which
the local borough members were requested to support by every
means in their power. The bill was drafted at the instance of a
conference of Vestries and District Boards, for the purpose of more
clearly defining the law for the protection of the ratepayers; and
the Vestry concurred in the views of the Islington Vestry in support
of the measure on the 27th November 1895.
Richardson v. The Vestry.—This was the case referred to in the
last Annual Report (page 53), wherein the owner of Nos. 3 to 19
Gurney Street refused to comply with notice to repair drainage on
the ground that the drain was a sewer, and took out a summons
against the Vestry for a nuisance under the Public Health Act of
1891. After several adjournments the case was finally heard on
the 4th November, when the magistrate (Mr. Hopkins) dismissed
the summons under the Public Health Act, but held that as the
pipe sewer at the rear served several houses, and as no single occupier
of any part of the estate could touch it without consulting with
the other occupiers it was a common sewer to the houses, and that
therefore the responsibility of keeping the sewer in order lay with
the Vestry; but no process short of an indictment could be taken
against the Vestry.
Upon the initiative of Mr. Russell Spokes (one of the representatives
for AValworth on the London County Council) the matter was
then taken up by the Council, by whom pressure was brought to
bear upon the Vestry to do the necessary work to put the drains
into a proper sanitary condition; and an arrangement was ultimately
arrived at by which the Vestry undertook to do all the work
that was necessary, by reconstructing the three outlets into the