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Messrs. Burroughes and Watts, of the Billiard Table Works,
Great Peter-street, Westminster, were similarly summoned,
and fined £5, with 10s. 6d. costs.
The Army and Navy Co-operative Stores (Limited), of
Francis-street, S.W., were summoned by the vestry for permitting
black smoke to issue from the chimney of their
engine-house in Coburg-row, so as to be a nuisance. Mr.
Warburton, counsel for the defendants, asked for a month's
adjournment, which was granted.
Houses Let in Lodgings.
About 1,250 houses are now registered under the above byelaws
in the United Parishes. With regard to the working of
these bye-laws the great advantage in legal procedure lies in
the fact that a breach of them is a finable offence, with a
further daily penalty after written notice, and is not a nuisance
subject to an order for abatement within a certain time.
The special advantages of the bye-laws are that, for the purpose
of this foregoing procedure, the local sanitary authority
is the judge of the conditions which shall prevail in such
houses—for a magistrate's duties are purely ministerial—because
overcrowding is defined. Proper ventilation is required;
the ceilings, walls and floors of the premises are to be kept
cleansed, and the former whitened at certain periods; a
sufficient number of closets is required in proportion to the
number of occupants: a defective drain is an offence, and a
definite period for the removal of solid or liquid filth from
rooms is provided.
Used with discretion the bye-laws have no tendency to depreciate
the value of property, for where cleanly persons
occupy the houses as landlords the conditions obtainable
under them are procured by the responsible persons themselves,
whilst in other cases the constant loss of rent which is incurred
by the removal of tenants because of the neglectful habits of