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combined result was clearly that one or both of the sewers diverted the
water from the spring, which formed the rivulet which had been converted
into what was considered ornamental water on the grounds of Mr. Stainton.
The District Board was then brought before the Court, and the motion
resumed and extended so as to obtain an injunction against them as well as
the Metropolitan Board. The motion was at his (the Master of the Bolls)
suggestion converted into a motion for a decree, so that a final adjudication
might at once be made. The case occupied the greater part of four days,
and was gone into very fully both on the facts and the law.
On the question of fact the Master of the Bolls came to the conclusion
that both the main and side sewer prejudicially affected the spring, to what
extent and in what proportion he was unable to say. The side sewer was
probably the more injurious of the two; but his impression was, that either
would, if retained unaltered, be sufficient to drain away the water which
originally rose on the plaintiffs' land and supplied the rivulet.
This being established or assumed, the question of law arose, whether
the plaintiffs were entitled to the injunction they asked, or whether the
defendants were entitled to do what they had done and continue the sewers
and drainage in their present state; upon which he (the Master) had
come to a conclusion favourable to the defendants. He was of opinion
that the decisions which relate to the right of an adjoining proprietor to
divert, by drainage or underground operations, water which might have
flowed or was flowing in the soil of an adjoining proprietor could not be
imported into the consideration of the case. The Boards could not be
treated as clothed with the rights or obligations of owners of lands. Such as
they were they were defined by statute; beyond it they could do nothing;
what it permitted or required they were bound to do; to the statute therefore
he must look for a solution of the question, interpreted and illustrated
by the decided cases which relate to acts done under similar statutes. He
fully concurred in that class of cases of which Jones v. Bird, and the
Grocers' Company v. Donne, illustrated the principle. In other words, he
entertained no doubt that if either of the Boards were producing the injury
complained of by the unskilful or improper construction of the sewers, the
Court would interfere to prevent it; but he did not think these cases
applied here, as he was of opinion that for the object pointed- out by the
statute, both the sewers were constructed in a very skilful manner, and
were well fitted to discharge the duties imposed upon them, if the injury
incidentally inflicted was not to be regarded.
He had to look at what the powers of the defendants were under those
acts, and thought this case was governed by the proviso at the end of the
50th sect, of the Act of 11 and 12 Yict. c. 112, as regarded the Commissioners
of Sewers, and a proviso, identical in terms, at the end of the 86th sect, of
the Act of 18 and 19 Vict. c. 120 (the Metropolis Local Management Act),
as regarded the Metropolitan and District Boards. The proviso referred to
(the operation of which was not to be limited to the previous part of the
section in each Act) enacted that where any work done by the Commissioners
should interfere with or prejudicially affect any right to the use of water,
full compensation should be made to all persons sustaining damage thereby
in manner provided by the act. In his opinion this was a case where the
right to the use of water was interfered with, and such right was limited
to a claim for compensation. No doubt, in many cases connected with