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respect to water-closets, ash-pits, &c. (dung-pits should have
been included), and with respect to the keeping of water-closets
supplied with water for flushing—which, however, should be
separate from the domestic supply.
Notices by Post.—Among other minor provisions, that in
sections 106 and 107 of the Consolidation Bill, and in section 43
of the Amendment Bill, enabling notices to be sent by post, is
not the least useful.
Informer.—Section 13 enables complaint of a nuisance to be
made by any person.
Fines.—The expression Fine is used throughout both Bills
in place of Penalty, and in section 98 of the Consolidation Bill,
provision is made for payment of fines to the Sanitary Authority—
excepting so much of the amount as may be handed over to the
common informer—but the wording of the section appears to
require amendment, so that it may be made clear that the whole
amount is to go to the Sanitary Authority when there is no
informer. The fines proposed are larger than those now enforceable,
but their imposition is at the discretion of the Justices,
who are somewhat apt to take too lenient a view of even heinous
sanitary offences, and who do not err by excess of sympathy for
officers whose disagreeable duty it is to prosecute offenders.
Appeals.—Section 5 (5) will checkmate offenders who make
appeals against the Orders of Justices, 'without any intention of
prosecuting them, but for delay only; inasmuch as a higher
penalty will be enforceable should the appellant fail to satisfy the
Court of first instance (after dismissal or abandonment of the
appeal) that there was substantial ground for the appeal. The
Court of Quarter Sessions, in dismissing an appeal, may impose
the fine as if the Court were a Petty Sessional Court. More
than this, it is provided by sec. 5 (6) that the Petty Sessional
Court may, in case of appeal, authorise the Sanitary Authority to