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122
supply. It is a question whether such ''notice'" should not be
given in every case, and therefore, when the supply is cut off
for non-payment of the rate ? It seems an unreasonable thing
that a water company should have the power of cutting off the
supply because, to take an extreme case as an example, an iron
pipe is used where a lead pipe should have been used; or because
a lead pipe is used of less weight per lineal yard than the regulations
require ; and I may remind your Vestry that it was on
account of the unreasonableness of the regulations in these and
similar respects, and the consequent expense they would have
entailed on the ratepayers, that the Metropolitan Board of
Works have refrained from exercising their powers under the
Act to require the constant supply. In such a supposed case,
"absence of prescribed fittings," the Company would be required
to give your Vestry " notice," the " nuisance" being " presumed
to be such as to render the premises unfit for human habitation
although water mav flow into the cistern, and vet they are under
no obligation to give such notice when they have cut off the
water to compel payment of a debt, a step whereby nuisance is
actually created.
Hitherto we have not had occasion to exercise the power
conferred by the 33rd section, and indeed it seems too strong a
measure for any ordinary case, and, especially, for the purpose
of enabling a water company to recover a debt.
When we hear of a house being without a water supply (and
the information often comes informally from a Company's
Collector when meeting a Sanitary Inspector on duty), the
practice is to serve a notice upon the owner or the occupier of
the house, requiring him within a specified number of days to
lay on the water. In default of compliance with such notice,
wo proceed by summons under the provisions of the " Nuisances
Removal Acts." The necessary " order " is usually made by
the Justices, but oftentimes there is so much delay in getting
the order carried out, that one is tempted to wish, on sanitary
grounds, and in the interests of the occupants themselves, we had
power to close houses without water as ''unfit for human habitation,"