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Court would in course of time seldom arise. But the law's delays
are very harassing to public officers, whose valuable time is often
wasted in fruitless attendance at the Police Court. Owing to the
number of "charges," the slowness of the proceedings, and repeated
adjournments, there is much delay in getting serious nuisances, dangerous
to health, and it may be to life, abated with the requisite speed.
Magistrates, moreover, ignoring the fact that much time has been
unavoidably taken up in complying with legal forms before an appeal
is made to them, too often allow an unreasonably long period for the
execution of sanitary works that might be carried out in a few hours,
or a day or two at most. I am inclined to think it would be a
good plan were your Vestry to exercise your powers under the Sanitary
Acts, and to carry out necessary works at the cost of the parties
liable, laying an embargo on the 'rent' to recoup the cost of the work
done and the necessary supervision.
Dairies, &c., Order, 1879.— Proceedings were taken against a
dairyman, under sec. 9 of this Order, for allowing his wife to take part
in the conduct of his business while she was nursing members of her
family suffering from an infectious disease. When the dairy was
visited the proprietor, two of his grown-up children also, and two
lodgers were found to be suffering from small-pox; and it transpired that
one of the dairyman's children had already died from this disease, though
in the medical certificate of the cause of death reference was made to
the secondary disease only (congestion of the lungs). The wife of the
dairyman and the wife of one of the lodgers were attending to the
business of the shop in the intervals of their ministrations in the sick
chambers. The dairyman had thus rendered himself liable to a penalty
of £20, but as all the sick persons had consented to go to the hospital,
the Order in Council, moreover, being a recent one, with which it was
possible the dairyman was not well acquainted—he also having suffered
heavily in pnrse and person from the outbreak—the magistrate took a
lenient view of the case, and mitigated the penalty to twenty shillings.
Conviction for Keeping Swine on "Prohibited" Premises.—
The defendant (since deceased) was the only person in "the Potteries"
who had persisted in keeping pigs on prohibited premises. She had
been fined on several occasions, and was once more mulct in a penalty
of forty shillings. The practice of keeping swine as a regular business