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and "drain" in the Public Health Acts. The Bill, which was presented
by Mr. George Thome and read a first time on July 15th, was
identical with that introduced in previous years. In the memorandum accompanying
the Bill it was pointed out that under existing definitions any
drain (outside the Metropolis) used for the drainage of more than one
house becomes technically a sewer and is therefore vested in and
reparable by the local authority. Numerous decisions in the Law
Courts demonstrate the practical difficulties which have arisen owing to
this state of the law. There is frequent interference by the local authority
with private propetry, and upon the whole body of ratepayers is thrown
the cost of repairing drains which are in all respects private and of no
use to the public in general. Moreover, the best methods of draining
houses and streets; cannot be adopted. It was thought that Section 19
of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act, 1890, an adoptive measure,
would overcome some of the difficulties, but this has not proved to be
the case, and Mr. Thome's Bill seeks to repeal that section which
provided that where two or more houses belonging to different owners
were connected with a public sewer by a single private drain the local
authority might call upon the owners of the houses to repair the drain.
The section, however, applies only where the houses in question belong
to different owners, and it does not apply unless the drain convevs the
sewage to a public sewer. If the sewage is conveyed to a cesspit, the
local authority cannot put the section in force, but must themselves keep
the drain in repair.
Cases which have gone to the High Court have demonstrated clearly
the necessity for an alteration in the existing law. In 1907 the Lord
Chief Justice, when giving judgment in a case brought by the Wood
Green Urban District Counil, pointed out how essential it was that there
should be some amendment of the law on the subject. The state of the
authorities, he said, was such that it appeared to be impossible either to
reconcile the various decisions or to declare from them any logical rule.
Mr. Thome's Bill provided that a drain should be one constructed on
private land by the landowner or builder, and that a sewer should be one
which had either been constructed by the local authority or had been laid
along a public street; with this important exception, however, that where
a drain had been constructed by a builder or landowner along a private
street, that is to say, along a street which had become a highway, but
which was not reparable by the local authority, the drain was to be a
sewer provided it had been constructed to the satisfaction of the local
authority