On the jurisprudence of chargeability for sanitary works and for poor rates, police rates, and other branches of local administration.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the jurisprudence of chargeability for sanitary works and for poor rates, police rates, and other branches of local administration. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    from want of means of cleansing. Sanitary science proposes that water shall be conveyed by pipes into the houses; that a soil-pan or water-closet shall be placed there, and also a sink for the removal of the waste water out of the house and into a drain, and thence into a sewer. But who is to pay for these works, which are a permanent addition and benefit to the property ? Not wholly the occupiers for the time being, who, in the great majority of cases in our towns, have only a short occupation—in the poorest districts only weekly ; it is a middle class that pays rents quarterly, and the owners of long leases in beneficial occupation of house property are very few indeed. In old urban districts in England the average occupation of all the house property is often less than a year. In the City of London the alterations of registra- tion, changes of firms and of occupations are 24 per cent, annually. On such conditions the question arises who is to pay, since the passing occupier cannot or will not pay the whole charge for new works ? Who but the owner ? was imme- diately the cry of the great majority of the occupiers ! you must charge the costs upon the owners—of course you must! But who is the owner? It is illustrative of the state of our juris- prudential and legislative terminology that the English law itself did not know or could not attach any clear meaning to this organic term. Here is a note of some legal dicta, on the point on which it was advised, that an administrative officer could not safely proceed in search of the owner, for “ it was the opinion of Sir Frederick Thessiger” (one eminent judge) “ and the late Sir William Bovill, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, that the word ‘owner’ would have reference to all sorts of persons interested in the property ;—he might be a leaseholder, he might be a freeholder, he might be a mortgagee in pos- session, he might be a mortgagee out of possession, he might have a rent charge; and it is quite impossible to know what the word ‘ owner’ means.” “ There is no list of owners: there is no means of ascertaining what the owners are; and the com- missioners are completely in the dark as to their numbers.”