As will be seen from what has preceded, the legal remedy in cases of nuisances has long been felt to be insufficient. To add to the other defects, there is great difficulty in determining whether a particular mode of using one's premises is in the nature of a nui sance or not; for if the line is drawn too narrowly, the rights of property and the natural freedom of the subject may be interfered with. On the other hand, things which for merly were considered no nuisances are now treated as such, owing to the spread of more enlightened views of public health and habits of cleanliness. These considerations recently induced the legislature to alter the common law in an important degree, and substitute a new code under the name of the public health and nuisances removal acts, 11 and 12 Vitt. c. 63; 18 and 19 Vict. c. 116; 35 and 36 Vict. c. 79. The general scheme of these acts is to enable districts to appoint local boards, with extensive powers of self government, and to undertake and execute sanitary improvements, such as drainage and water supply on a large scale, paying for the expense thereof by a local rate or assess ment.
As regards the power of removing nuisances, a statute was passed in 1855 for land, called the nuisances removal act, which has been amended by two subsequent acts. By these acts, some sanitary authority, called rural or urban, under 35 and 36 Vict. c. 79, is appointed the local authority for carrying out the provisions of the act, and these are of an extensive kind. The act defines a nuisance to include any premises in such a state as to be a nuisance or injurious to health; any pool, ditch, gutter, water-course, privy, urinal. cess-pool, drain, or ashpit, so foul as be a nuisance or injurious to health; any animal so kept as to be a nuisance, or injurious to health; and any accumulation or deposit, overcrowding, foul condition, or smoke. The local to appoint a sanitary inspector at a proper salary. Any person aggrieved may give notice to the local board, or the sanitary inspector may do so. The local board has extensive pow ers; it can authorize its inspector, on reasonable complaint. to demand an entrance into any private premises SO, as to inspect their condition, and may order the removal of nui sances found to exist there. The local board, on finding a nuisance exists, direct their officer to go before a justice of the peace and procure an order directing the private party to abate the nuisance. If he refuse to do so, the local board may remove the nuisance at the expense of the party on whose premises it exists, and sue him for such expenses. If any candle-house, melting-house, soap-house, slaughter-house, or place for boiling offal, blood, bones, etc., be certified by the medical officer, or any two medical practi tioners, to be a nuisance, or injurious to the health of the inhabitants of the neighbor hood, the local board may cause the person carrying on such trade to appear before a justice of the peace, and if it is not satisfactorily proved that he does not use the best practicable means for preventing or counteracting the effluvia, he is fined. So if are overcrowded, this may be stopped. Provisions are also enacted with a view to pre vent the spread of diseases in times of epidemics, and to prevent common lodging-houses being kept in a foul state. Another important provision relates to the seizure of diseased meat and provisions exposed to sale, and the medical officer of health, or inspector of nuisances, has at all times power to inspect any animal, carcase, meat, poultry, game, flesh, fish, fruit, vegetables, corn, bread, or flour; and if found unfit for food, or dis eased, or unsound, they may be carried away then and there and destroyed, and the shopkeeper fined. The local authority may also order owners of houses to supply proper
water-closets. and to cleanse gutters and cesspools which are foul. Besides the above provisions as to nuisances generally, there are separate statutes for the English metropo lis and the river Thames; thus furnaces in mills, factories, bake-houses, etc., in London, must. consume their own smoke. These statutes are the 16 and 17 Vict. c. 128, and 19 and 20 Vict. c. 107. The public health act, 1875 (39 and 40 Vict. c. 55), practically codi fies the law on all such matters. The rivers pollution act, 1876 (39 and 40 Vict. c. 75), deals with another important species of nuisance.
In Scotland, a nuisances removal statute was passed in 1856, and was re-enacted by the public health act, 1867, 30 and 31 Vict. c. 101. By that act the town council, or police commissioners of the place, are constituted the local authority for enforcing the act, and in other places the parochial board. Besides dealing with the same class of nuisances as the English act, the Scotch act provided for checking all trades and busi nesses offensive and injurious to the health of the neighborhood. Similar powers were given to the local board to enter private houses and explore the causes of nuisances. Diseased and unwholesome meat and provisions may also be seized. Common lodging houses were to be registered, mid to be subject to rules and regulations to be made by the local authority. With regard to towns in Scotland, an extensive code of police laws was enacted in the general and improvement acts, 25 and 26 Vict. c. 101. 31 and 39 Vict. c. 102. The acts may be adopted by burghs; and villages above 700 of popula tion may, by vote of house-holders, be converted into burghs for this purpose. A smoke nuisance act for Scotland was passed applicable to all burghs, 20 and 21 Vict. c. 73; 24 Vict. c. 17; 28 and 29 Vict. c. 102.
The above isAhe usual legal acceptation of:the term nuisance, but the word is some times used popularly to denote that class of nuisances, caused by disorderly houses or brothels, which are familiarly described as common nuisances. In the law of England those who keep a brothel are liable to be indicted for a misdemeanor, but as there was often a difficulty in setting the law in motion in such cases, a statute of 25 Geo. II. c. 33, enacted that if any two inhabitants should give notice to a constable of such a house being kept, it should then be the duty of constable under a penalty, to go with such inhabitants before a justice and engage to prosecute the keeper, and their expenses are paid by the parish out of the poor-rates. The same act provided that whoever in point of fact acted as the master or the mistress of the house, should be taken to be the keeper of the house. The punishment is fine and imprisonment. Of late an attempt has been made to convict a landlord under this statute when he knows of the character of his ten ants, and refuses to give them notice to quit; but the courts have held that the mere fact of the landlord refusing to give notice to quit, and so to eject such tenants, was not enough to make him liable in any criminal punishment. In Scotland, the offense of keeping a brothel is punishable in a similar manner. But apart Irons the keeping of a brothel, there is no criminal offense committed in this country by those who frequent such houses for the purposes of prostitution unless where the circumstances amount to rape (q.v.), or abduction (q.v.), or an aggravated assault.