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PUBLIC LIBRARY

263892

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS. 1901

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,

AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.

THE FIRST EDITION of this work was published shortly after the passing of the Local Government Act, 1858; the Second in the year 1862; the Third in 1864; the Fourth in 1866; the Fifth in 1869; which latter being exhausted, and the demand for the work continuing undiminished, the present, which is the Sixth Edition, is now published.

The arrangement of the original work has been preserved, but the several chapters have been greatly extended in respect of their subject-matter, and revised so as to accord with the provisions of the Local Government Board Act, 1871,

The work is comprised in Six Parts: the First Part treats of the formation of the districts of the Local Boards, the constitution of those Boards, their election and general powers; the Second Part, of their powers as to sanitary matters and the local government of towns; the Third Part, of the powers of Local Boards as to rating, raising money on mortgage of the rates, purchase of lands, audit of accounts, contracts, arbitration, legal proceedings, bye-laws, and other miscellaneous subjects; the Fourth Part, of the removal of nuisances injurious to health; the Fifth Part, of sewage utilization and the constitution of sewer authorities under the Acts of 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, and 1870; and the Sixth Part, of the law relating to the prevention of epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases.

The plan of the work places before the reader, at one view, the whole of the law upon each particular subject embraced in it, and it is, in fact, practically a consolidation of the Statute law as expounded by the Courts.

Not only during the interval of each edition of this work have additions been made by the Legislature to the Sanitary Laws, but very numerous decisions have been pronounced by the Courts of Law upon the construction of the Public Health and Local Government Acts. The whole of the decisions will be found incorporated

in the text of the chapters to which they severally relate. Those which bear upon the pollution of rivers by the sewage of towns being discharged into them are of peculiar importance, as the subject of the preservation of rivers from pollution now demands the serious attention of the local authorities.

Several entirely new chapters have been added; and some of those contained in the former Editions have been re-written or subdivided into sections, so as to keep each particular subject separate, and thus make the work more easy of reference.

One of the new Chapters relates to the powers of sewer authorities under the Sewage Utilization Act, 1865, and the Sanitary Acts, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, and 1870, which give improved facilities for the sewerage of suburban districts. Another is of peculiar importance, treating of the drainage, storage, and distribution of water, and is contributed by Mr. P. B. Cunningham, Civil Engineer, late of Her Majesty's Indian Government Service.

The law relating to the removal of nuisances injurious to health, and the prevention of diseases, has been entirely revised; and with that part of the work has been incorporated the new provisions of the Sanitary Acts, 1866 and 1868, which give greater facilities for the removal of nuisances by the action of the local authorities.

Mr. Algernon C. Bauke, of the Local Government Board, has again undertaken the duty of revising the proof sheets and Index to the work; and I have only further to add, that I have spared no pains to render the work still more worthy of the favour which it has met with from the legal profession and the local authorities throughout England.

W. C. G.

5, Elm Court, Temple,

1st January, 1872.

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