the members, or otherwise alter the constitution of any parochial committee, or even dissolve it altogether. The parochial committee is subject to any regulations or restrictions imposed upon it by the rural authority, whose mere agent it is, and who are responsible for its acts. Finally, the parochial committee may be authorized to incur expenses to a prescribed amount, and must give an account of its expenditure to the rural authority.*

The expenses incurred by a rural sanitary authority in the execution of the Public Health Act are divided into (1) general and (2) special expenses. General expenses (other than those charged on owners and

*The following are the only powers and duties which ought, in the opinion of the Local Government Board, to be assigned to a parochial committee:-(1) To inspect their district from time to time with a view of ascertaining whether any works of construction are required, or any nuisances exist therein which ought to be abated; (2) to superintend the execution and maintenance of any works which may be required or have been provided for the special use of the district, and to give directions for any repairs or other matters requiring immediate attention, in relation to such works, which fall within the reasonable scope of the authority which they possess as agents of the rural sanitary authority; (3) to consider complaints of any nuisances, and the action of the medical officer of health or inspector of nuisances thereon, and to inform those officers of any nuisance requiring their attention, and to give such direc tions for the abatement of the same in case of urgency as the occasion may seem to require; (4) to examine and certify all accounts relating to expenditure within their district; (5) to report to the rural sanitary authority from time to time the several matters requiring their attention, and the manner in which their officers and servants have discharged their duties.

1

occupiers under the act) are all expenses incurred under the act, except such as are determined by the act itself or by order of the local government board to be special expenses. Special expenses are expenses of the construction, maintenance, and cleansing of sewers in any contributory place within the district, or the providing a supply of water to any such place, and maintaining the necessary works for that purpose. General expenses are payable out of a common fund to be raised out of the poor rate of the parishes in the district according to the rateable value of each contributory place. On the other hand special expenses are to be a separate charge on each contributory place in respect of, or for the benefit of which, they are incurred.

Rural sanitary authorities are invested (subject to the sanction of the local government board with power to borrow for general or special expenses) on the security of the rates applicable thereto.

The powers possessed by rural are less extensive than those enjoyed by urban authorities; but they are no doubt sufficient to meet the wants of country districts. A rural authority has power to maintain existing sewers and drains or to make new ones; and generally to regulate the sewerage and drainage of their district, to provide for the disposal of the sewerage, and with that view to construct works or lease land; to enforce the provision of privy accommodation in houses; to cleanse offensive ditches; to provide their district or any contributory place with a supply of water; to regulate cellar dwellings and common lodging houses; to make bye-laws as to other lodging houses (if empowered by

the local government board); to inspect their district for the abatement of nuisances and take steps for their abatement; to enforce the provisions of any act in force within their district for compelling fireplaces and furnaces to consume their own smoke; to inspect meat, &c., exposed for sale as human food, and if unsound seize the same in order that it may be dealt with by a justice; to take various precautions against the spread of infectious diseases; to provide temporary hospitals; to carry out any regulations made by the local government board for preventing the spread of epidemics; * to enforce the bakehouse regulation act; to provide mortuaries; or to execute any provisions of the act usually in force in urban districts, but which the Local Government board may by order direct to extend to any rural sanitary district or to any contributory place therein. Thus the rural sanitary authorities with the sanction of the Local Government board may, as we have already seen, exercise powers of lighting the whole or part of their district, or become the highway authorities of their district.

Rural authorities must from time to time appoint fit and proper persons to be medical officers of health, and inspectors of nuisances, and also such assistants and other officers as may be necessary for the efficient execution of the act.t

*By causing premises to be cleansed or disinfected; infected bedding to be destroyed; providing for the conveyance of infected persons to hospitals; enforcing the disinfection of public conveyances; or preventing persons letting houses or lodgings which have been occupied by an infected person until the same have been disinfected.

The clerk and treasurer of the Board of Guardians may

It would obviously be impossible within the space at our command to enter into any detailed statement of the law as it applies to the various powers with which rural sanitary authorities are entrusted. Such a statement would rather belong to a work on sanitary law; and it falls all the less within our province, inasmuch as the powers to which we have referred are as a rule exercised, not by any parochial body, but by the rural sanitary authority of the district of which the parish forms part. The administration of the clauses of the Public Health Act relating to nuisances and their removal does however depend so much upon the action and efficiency of the parochial committees (whose attention is indeed specially directed to this matter by the circular from the local government board which we quoted in a previous page), that we may with advantage enter with some fulness into the provisions of the act on this subject.

The following are deemed to be "nuisances," and subject to removal :—

1. Any premises in such a state as to be a nuisance or injurious to health.

2. Any pool, ditch, gutter, watercourse, privy, urinal, cesspool, drain, or ashpit, so foul as to be a nuisance or injurious to health.

3. Any animal so kept as to be a nuisance or inju rious to health.

De remunerated (with the approval of the local government woard) for any additional duties cast upon them by the act; or if the clerk of the union is unable or unwilling to discharge the duties, then the assistant clerk may be appointed to discharge them, with additional remuneration.

4. Any accumulation or deposit which is a nuisance or injurious to health.

5. Any house or part of a house so overcrowded as to be dangerous or prejudicial to the health of the inmates, whether or not members of the same family.

6. Any factory, workshop, or workplace not already under the operation of any general act for the regulation of factories or bakehouses, not kept in a cleanly state or not ventilated in such a manner as to render harmless, as far as practicable, any gases, vapours, dust, or other impurities generated in the course o the work carried on therein that are a nuisance, or injurious or dangerous to health, or so overcrowded while work is carried on as to be dangerous or prejudicial to the health of those employed therein.

7. Any fireplace or furnace which does not, as far as practicable, consume the smoke arising from the combustible used in such fireplace or furnace, and is used within the district of a nuisance authority for working engines by steam, or in any mill, factory, dyehouse, brewery, bakehouse, or gaswork, or in any manufactory or trade process whatever; and any chimney (not being the chimney of a private dwelling-house) sending forth black smoke in such quantity as to be a nuisance. But the act expressly provides, that no such accumulation or deposit as shall be necessary for the effectual carrying on of any business or manufacture shall be punishable as a nuisance, when it is proved to the satisfaction of the justices that the accumulation or deposit has not been kept longer than is necessary for the purpose of such