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payable by the landlord. The Companies' claims in these
cases form a prior charge upon the rent payable to the landlord;
and if the same principle were to be extended to the
case of all houses for which rent is payable, the power to cutoff
the supply might be taken away without material risk of
loss to the Companies. In any case I am of the opinion that
this power (conferred by the Act of 1847) should be taken
away, and do not doubt that measures might be devised to
secure to the Companies the payment of their lawful dues.
The Public Health Act, in Section 48 (1), declares that—
"An occupied house without a proper and sufficient supply of water, shall
he a nuisance liable to be dealt with summarily under the Act, and
if it is a dwelling-house, shall be deemed unfit for human habitation."
It is an anomaly in these days of sanitary progress, that a
Company should have the power, by cutting-off the supply,
to create a nuisance "liable to be dealt with summarily under
the Act." The position of the Sanitary Authority, moreover,
it being their duty to take proceedings for the abatement of
the nuisance thus created—a duty which in effect makes them
the agents of the Company to secure payment of the rate—
is undignified, not to say ridiculous. It is time that steps
were taken to correct such a state of affairs, affecting, as it
does, a question of prime importance from the public health
point of view.
Underground Tanks.—A communication was received,
in July, 1889, from the Coronet:, forwarded at the
request of a jury, with reference to the death of a child
drowned in an underground tank in a mews at South
Kensington. The jury justly observed "that these tanks are
exceedingly dangerous, and ought to be done away with." and
they naturally supposed that the Sanitary Authority had
some power of control over the placing of cisterns: but it is
not so. The Water Companies, however, have powers under
regulation 16, which provides that: "No cistern buried or
p