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188
By Section 41 of the Public Health Act, 1875, on receipt
of a written application that a drain is a nuisance, the local
authority may, after investigation, serve a notice upon the owner of
the premises requiring him to do what is necessary to put the drain in
proper order and condition. If the notice is not complied with, not
only is the owner liable to penalties, but the local authority may themselves
enter upon the premises, do the necessary work, and recover the
cost from the owner.
It will be noted that this section is limited to the word "drain "
(the blue lines shown in the sketches), and gives the local authority no
power to order work or recover the cost of work in respect of the
sewer A B. It may also be noted in passing that the question of the
ownership of the houses does not affect the definition of sewer. The
lines A B are sewers whether all the houses belong to one owner or
whether they belong to different owners.
By Section 19 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act, 1890,
it is provided that, "Where two or more houses belonging to different
owners are connected with a public sewer by a single private drain, an
application may be made under Section 41 of the Public Health Act,
1875, and the local authority may recover any expenses incurred
by them in executing any works under the powers conferred on them
by that section from the owners of the houses in such shares and proportions
as shall be settled by their surveyor. For the purposes of
this section the expression 'drain' includes a drain used for the
drainage of more than one building."
The first difficulty experienced on the passage of the above section
was the want of a definition of the terra "single private drain." The
view adopted in Self v. Hove Commissioners, which was followed in
Mayor, &c., of Eastbourne v. Bradford, and generally accepted since,
appears to be that it could only mean a common conduit on
private property used for the drainage of more than one building.
From this it is apparent that the question of the ownership of the
houses becomes of prime importance. A pipe used for the drainage of