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478
The Company print on their demand notes sections 37
and 39, but the demand note is misleading both by omission
and by insertion. By omission, because while sections 37
and 39 are printed, section 38, the agreement section, is left
out. By insertion, because by printing "The charge for
baths is l0s. each," following the sections, most readers
would suppose that the amount of the bath charge was stated
in the Act. The 10s. charge is an arbitrary sum fixed by
the Company,
Section 39 does not sanction the practice of the
Company. They do not venture to charge for movable
or common baths. The Act would be amended at once if
they did. The word "baths" is nowhere defined. Fixed
baths art; not once named in the Act. Either a right to
prevent the use of water in a bath of any description has
been given, or the use of water in baths in dwelling houses
is a domestic use and included in the rate for domestic
purposes.
The demand note of course has no legal authority or
weight. Taking the three sections in the Act, the natural
meaning of "baths" in section 39 is "bathing establishments"
or "public baths." The wording of the section
is very peculiar. The Company, in order to maintain their
claims, want quite different words in section 39.
The public have assumed that a Company entrusted
with large powers would exercise them with scrupulous care;
that their demand notes would be strictly accurate; that if
the lawfulness of any rate or charge made by them was
formally challenged or denied, they would submit their
interpretation of their Act to the judgment of a Court of
Law. But when the lawfulness of this bath charge was