View report page

156
Company. But as the water was cut oft' on account of non-payment
of the Company's water rentals, the Company was under no
obligation to give such notice. The absence of the prescribed
fittings, which entitles the company to cut off the water, constitutes
a statutory nuisance within Section 11 and Sections 12
and 19 (inclusive) of the Nuisances Removal Act for England
1855, and is "presumed to be such as to render the premises
unfit for human habitation," even although the premises may be
supplied with water. But should the premises have been deprived
of water by the act of the Company, as in the present instance,
for non-payment of the rate, the law has nothing to say to the
matter. The Nuisance Authority may be, and often is, left in
ignorance of the fact for weeks together, and when ultimately proceedings
have been taken for the restoration of supply, supposing
the Vestry's notice be disregarded, it is within the discretion of the
Justices to make such Order as they think fit, and to decide,
should their Order be disregarded, whether or no the house is
"unfit for human habitation."
Looking at the water companies' powers from a sanitary point
of view it seems to me reasonable—while the law is in its present
unsatisfactory state—that a company should demand payment of
its water rental in advance in the case of a bad tenant, and take
proceedings to enforce payment prior to the expiration of the
period covered by the demand note, and thus obviate the necessity
for cutting off the water. I see no reason, moreover, why the
companies should not be endowed with the same facilities for
recovering their water rentals as a "nuisance authority" for the
recovery of its rates, and these are simplicity itself. Water
Companies, however, are naturally enough unwilling to be at the
trouble of taking legal proceedings, although the costs would fall
on the defaulting tenant.
The Hayden's Mews case gave rise to a correspondence between
your Vestry and the Secretary to the Company, and between myself
and that gentleman, which will be found in my special report
above referred to. In the course of it the Secretary having suggested
that the Medical Officer of Health should act in "harmony "