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was submitted by the Company on the 26th July, 1898, and the
Company proceeded with the work.
System of
Supply.
In December, 1898, the Vestry received a communication from
the Board of Trade enclosing letters from the Company,
asking permission to change the system of supply to a
system of two-phase alternating currents; the Vestry, however, did
not agree to the proposal.
Injunction
against
Company.
In carrying out the work of laying mains throughout the parish,
it was discovered by the Vestry's Surveyor that between Saturday,
the 11th, and Monday, the 13th February, the Company
laid down two sets of mains across Borough High Street,
near St. George's Church. One of these sets of pipes
was laid in the correct line, but the other was laid along a trench
deviating from the plan in a south-westerly direction, from a point
opposite St. George's Church to the southerly side of Marshalsea
Eoad. The Company still insisting on laying pipes along the
southerly side of that road, contrary to the plan, the Surveyor
stopped the work on Thursday, the 16th February.
The Company having claimed the right to lay pipes along
the northerly and southerly sides of the road, beyond the point indicated
on the plan, the Vestry Clerk was instructed, on the 17th
February, to obtain an interim injunction restraining the Company
from proceeding with the work.
The case came before Mr. Justice Kennedy the next day, as an
ex parte application, and he made an order restraining the Company
from proceeding until the hearing of a summons before a Judge in
Chambers.
The case was heard by Mr. Justice Phillimore, on Friday, the 24th
February, 1899, when, after reading the affidavits of the Vestry Clerk
and Surveyor, and of the Assistant Engineer of the Company, and
carefully examining the plan deposited by the Company with the
Vestry, his lordship suggested that in his view it would be desirable
for both parties to treat the hearing in Chambers as the trial of the
action. The Company's Solicitor agreed to this course, and the
Judge thereupon gave judgment for the Vestry for a declaration,