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195
not only for the repair of the main drain behind their premises, but
also for that behind Mr. Joseph's, merely because he happens to own
two houses while they only own one. It is equally unfair to place
some of the cost (however small) upon the ratepayers on the opposite
side of the road who possibly may not own a house at all.
Again, if Mr. Joseph, perchance, had six children, and willed a
house to each child, or if he sold the six houses to six several
individuals, then at his decease or at the sale, as the case may be, the
six houses would resemble the others in the row, they would fall
within the wording of Section 19, "two or more houses belonging to
different owners connected with a sewer by a single private drain," and
the owners would be liable to the apportionment of which the one
owner, Mr. Joseph, has been relieved. If, in the course of years, all
the six houses again fell into one ownership, it cannot be doubted the
Wood Green decision would be urged as a precedent for relieving the
owner of liability for maintaining the main drain at the rear.
Whatever their wording may be, the Public Health Acts were
never intended to shift the onus of repair on to and off the owners of
houses in the above manner, merely by the vagaries of testamentary
disposition or the accident of sale.
In order to show the advisability of an appeal to the House of
Lords, or, better still, a thorough amendment of the public legislation
relating to drainage, I append two or three plans of drainage found in
West Ham, which differ somewhat from the cases decided in the Court
of Appeal, and offer questions for consideration which can scarcely be
answered by the decided cases.
(1) Of six houses, Nos. 1 and 2 belong to different owners, and
Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6 to a third owner. Each house is separately drained