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Therefore, for the purpose of liability for costs and of the
question whether any proceedings had been taken on behalf of
the sanitary authority those provisions were of very great
importance. But they were beside the mark in this case, the
question here being whether a private individual could take
proceedings under Section 47 (2). Could it be contended that
the only persons who could take proceedings under Section 47 (2)
were the Medical Officer of Health or the Sanitary Inspector, or
the Council who authorised them? It was said that the right to
take proceedings was limited by the opening words of the Section,
but that contention went too far, in view of the object of the
Statute, which was intended to ensure food being wholesome
and to prevent diseased food from being exposed for sale. To
restrict the right of any individual to lay an information there
ought to have been express words to that effect. For the reasons
stated in "Back v. Holmes" (51 J.P, 693), it was not open
to argument that a private individual could not lay an information.
It was said that in this case the information was laid by
the respondent on behalf of the Borough Council, but on
that point this case was covered by "Allman v. Hardcastle"
(67 J. P., 440), where it was decided that the words "on behalf
of the Borough Council" in the summons could be rejected as
surplusage. As the power to lay an information was not limited
to the persons referred to in the earlier part of Section 47, it
could not be contended that because there were in the Act
certain sections protecting the sanitary authority, these proceedings
were had ah initio. The case of "Isle of Wight Ferry
Company v. Ryde Commissioners" (25 J.P., 454), was a very
different case from the present. That was a case of an alleged
nuisance on a foreshore, and involved very different considerations.
The statute there in question (the Nuisances Removal
Act, 1855) was not a statute of the character of the Public
Health Acts dealing with a matter of great public importance,
and the point that a private individual could not take proceedings
for a nuisance was not raised there, nor could it have been raised.
The respondent in the present case was entitled as a private
individual to lay an information and take out a summons, and
the fact that the sanitary authority was protected as regards