Report from Select Committee on Metropolis Sewers : with minutes of evidence, and an appendix.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Metropolis Sewers.
- Date:
- [1834]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report from Select Committee on Metropolis Sewers : with minutes of evidence, and an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.
213/276 page 13
![[ia making of any new vaults, sewers, drains and watercourses, in all or any of the streets, lanes and public ways,” is an authority to them to give orders and directions for the building of sewers in those streets, lanes or public ways where they have been omitted ? II. Westminster and part of Middlesex District. And if so, to whom the order and direction for the build¬ ing of such sewers should be addressed, and if not attended to, how it should be enforced ? If you should be of opinion that the Commissioners are not authorized to call upon the owners of houses to build sewers in those streets where they have been omitted, can the Commissioners give orders and directions for their being built by their own workmen ? And in that case you are requested to advise how such sewers are to be paid for. It would not seem equitable that such sewers when built should be paid for out of the rates raised for the maintaining, repairing and cleansing the exist¬ ing sewers, as in that case those who own houses for which regular sewers have been built at their own charge, would be called upon to pay towards sewers for others who have omitted to build them, and whose houses would, by means of such sewer, be very ma¬ terially enhanced in value. Opinion. We are of opinion that no inference can be strong enough to authorize the levy of a tax upon His Majesty’s subjects, and that the power of directing works to be done will not warrant the Commissioners to raise money for the purpose of doing them. We also think that their general powers do not extend to making nqw sewers. The law, therefore, appears to us not to have provided for the present case. Lincoln’s Inn, \ T. Denman. •27 January 1832.] , . Wm. Horne. 6.—COPY of Case and of the Opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor-General as to the right of the Commissioners of Sewers to distrain on the Occupier of a House for Arrears of a Rate, although the same became due from and in the time of a previous Occupier. Case. BY the Bill of Sewers (23 Hen. 8, c. 5), Commissioners or Justices are authorized “ To survey the walls, streams, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers, gotes, calcies, bridges, trenches, mills, milldams, floodgates, ponds, locks, hebbingwears, and other impediments, lets and annoyances aforesaid, and the same cause to be made, corrected, repaired, amended, put down or reformed, as the case shall require, after your wisdoms and discretions, and therein as well to order and do after the form, tenor and effect of all and singular the statutes and ordinances made before the 1st day of March in the 23d year of our reign, touching the premises or any of them; as also to inquire by the oaths of the honest and lawful men of the said shire or shires, place or places, where such defaults or annoyances be, as well within the liberties as without (by whom the truth may the rather be known) through whose defaults the said hurts and damages have happened, and who hath or holdeth any lands or tenements, or common of pasture, or profit of fishing, or hath or may have any hurt, loss or disadvantage, by any manner of means in the said places, as well near to the said dangers, lets and impediments, as inhabiting or dwelling thereabouts by the said walls, ditches, banks, gutters, gotes, sewers, trenches and other the said impediments and annoyances; and all those persons, and every of them, to tax, assess, charge, distrain and punish, as well within the metes, limits and bounds of old time accustomed or otherwise, or elsewhere within our realm of England, after the quantity of their lands, tenements and rents, by the number of acres and perches, after the rate of every person’s portion, tenure or profit, or after the quantity of their common of pasture, or profit of fishing, or other commodites there, by such ways and means, and in such manner and form as to you or six of you, whereof the said A., B. and C., to be three, shall seem most convenient to be ordained and dond for redress and reformation to be had in the premises ; and also to reform, repair and amend the said walls, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers, gotes, calcies, bridges, streams and other the premises in all places needful, and the same as often and where need shall be to make new, and to cleanse and purge the trenches, sewers and ditches, in all places necessary; and fur¬ ther to reform, amend, prostrate and overthrow, all such millstreams, ponds, locks, fishgarths, hebbingwears, and other impediments and annoyances aforesaid, as shall be found by inqui¬ sition, or by your surveying and discretions, to be excessive, or hurtful; and also to depute and assign diligent, faithful and true keepers, bailiffs, surveyors, collectors, expenditors and other ministers and officers, for the safety, conservation, reparation, reformation and making of the premises, and every of them; and to hear the account of the collectors and other ministers of and for the receipt and laying out of the money that shall be levied and paid in and about the making, reforming, repairing and amending of the said walls, ditches, banks, gutters, gotes, sewers, calcies, bridges, streams, trenches, mills, ponds, locks, fishgarths, floodgates, and other impediments and annoyances aforesaid, and to distrain for the arrear¬ ages of every such collection, tax and assess, as often as shall be expedient, or otherwise to punish the debtors and detainers of the same by fines, amerciaments, pains or other like means, after your good discretions.” The 7th section enacts as follows: “ That the Commissioners hereafter to be named in any of the said commissions, according to the purport and effect of the same commissions, have full power and authority to make, constitute and ordain, laws ordinances and decrees, and further to do all and every thing mentioned in the said commission, according to the purport, effect, words and true meaning of the same ; and the same laws and ordinances so 0.28. b 3 made](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30459205_0213.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
