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Again: Mr. Crawshay talks of " setting up in the provinces rival powers to parliament. A little more knowledge on the subject would have made Mr. Crawshay see errors here:-one of fact, one of principle. There is nothing new needed to be "set up. If the sheriff's of shires now fulfilled their duty and their oath, the whole local machinery would be in constant action. But such machinery neither needs nor ought to consist in "rival powers to parliament." The true action of local selfgovernment is in harmony, not rivalry, with parliament. Parliament is now purposely weighed down with a vast number of matters, unconstitutionally laid on it, for the sole purpose of encumbering it, so that it can the less well discharge its real functions; that thus the oligarchic system may thrive the more securely, and bureaucracy be ever master of the situation. The whole system is rotten. It is this that brings us Balaklavas abroad and at home. It can end only, unless promptly and vigorously grappled with, in revolution. The cause of local self-government agaiust centralisation is, rightly understood, not that of revolution but of reinvigoration. The bureaucrats are the revolutionists :-we are the warders-off of revolution.

I could show many other instances of the want of knowledge on these subjects, which the Whig system has, by craftily pandering to men's lowest selfish motives, succeeded in making so general. It would be easy to show the bureaucratic aims and machinery which the so boasted "Reform Bill" had chiefly in view. Respect for your space only allows me now to notice one other instance; which, as a very recent one, will be useful. I allude to the affair, a fortnight ago, between Mr. Wakley and the police. Those who ought to have been better informed have descended to attempt to convert into a poor jest of "bumbledom and beakdom" à circumstance which in fact involved and illustrated the whole question between local self government and centralisation. Our constitutional system has always provided for full inquiry on every fact that can concern the common welfare. That inquiry is to be the responsible duty of the neighbourhood itself. The neighbours have the duty and responsibility cast on them of feeling that they have all, as citizens, a personal part in the welfare of the state. Bureaucracy seeks to destroy all such feelings,-to do all for men by irresponsible functionaries. The constitution declares, that many minds bent to one matter will best bring out truth. Bureaucracy, careless of logic and of truth, loves irresponsible summary jurisdiction carried out by functionaries. The quarrel in this case had nothing in the world to do with the officers. It was entirely whether free men shall be bound promptly to inquire about the facts of any murder that occurs, and, having found these to implicate any person, the law should take its course ;— or whether there shall be no such inquiry,-but, if perchance any person be suspected, a single functionary shall hold discretional jurisdiction over him. It is the quarrel between intelligence and servility; between a constant and ever-present sense of responsibility in all, and the spirit of tame subserviency to cliquism and functionarism; in a word, between true local self-government and centralisation. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, TOULMIN SMITH,

February 9.

Chairman of the Anti-Centralisation Union.

ARISTOCRACY AND BUREAUCRACY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING HERALD.

SIR,-May I ask your readers' consideration of two Notes and Queries which passing events suggest.

(1) There is a loud cry being raised, evidently of purpose and system, against the "aristocracy." Is not this cry being deliberately thus raised in order to withdraw attention from the real mischief to which some recent correspondents of your journal have called marked attention-namely, that allpervading influence of "bureaucracy "which has grown up in England?

(2) Is it not due to themselves and to their country, that those who respect a true aristocracy should, without delay, grapple with this all-important question of "bureaucracy"-the growth of which is as antagonistic to the spirit of our English constitution and institutions as it has proved itself the fatal cause of those mischiefs that have humiliated us before Europe, and which are now threatening us equally abroad as at home! I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Feb. 16, 1855.

NO BUREAUCRAT.

PUBLIC HEALTH AND NUISANCES REMOVAL BILLS.

M. Herald 7་་ཐ་ཚིག་ 7 Mard 183757

A public meeting of manufacturers and others opposed to the "arbitrary and injurious measures" sought to be effected by the above bills, was held yesterday at theótar. London Tavern. Mr. F. C. Hills, of Deptford, in the chair.

Mr. Toulmin Smith, after a few preliminary observations, said it must be obvious that this was not a mere question as to individual interests of manufacturers, as he should show, as he had given great attention for many years to the subject before the first Public Health Bill was passed. Since then the Smoke Bill had been passed into a law, but its effects at the time had not been seen and judged of by them; but now he rejoiced that a number of gentlemen, having seen the effect of that bill, were come forward to do away with the evil of the new bill brought before them. The manufacturers, who were pinched by those measures, now began to feel that their interests, as well as those of the public, were affected by both bills, for they applied to one just as much as to the other. On the plea of helping the poor man, these measures were going on and increasing, and every year were getting worse. The first Public Health Bill was very bad, and so vexatious were some of its provisions, that if a man in the country had a drain-pipe stopped up, he could do nothing without sending up to London to ask the Board of Health if they would allow him to employ a plumber to unstop it. Such things, however, would go on so long as men were paid out of the public purse, and while they had that purse to deal with, and the prestige of men in power to back their efforts, there would always be enough to find fault with. Last year they brought forward the Public Nuisances' Removal Bill; but the bill as introduced this year was far more obnoxious than that. In every step they took their progress was more at direct variance with the public interests. The present bill, as it stood, had never been before the House of Commons at all; and on that he charged with direct fraud those by whom it had been brought forward. Sir Benjamin Hall, who had introduced both bills, stated that the bills were brought for ward merely pro forma, for the purpose of being referred to a select committee; but on comparing the clauses now contained in the bill with that originally introduced, he found that several new ones had been inserted that had never been seen by the members of the House of Commons, the clauses thus introduced being those of the most obnoxious character. He (Mr. Smith) happened to be in consultation with a member of the House of Commons who was in attendance for the purpose of moving that the bill should not be proceeded with ; but on that night there was

a most interesting debate upon a subject familiar to them, and having waited until one o'clock in the morning, when all honest men ought to be in bed, the Speaker being then very tired, the name of the bill was mumbled over; and so it passed that stage without opposition. Session by session they had gradually introduced encroachments by regulations brought into gas, water, and other bills, until no property in the country was respected. Enterprise had been stopped in many counties, in supplying water and gas, which would have proved of great benefit to many of the towns of England, but had been put a stop to; improvements had been obstructed, and the liberty of the subject had been impeded, by the operation of this act. As to the operation of the Board of Health, he found by a report on the state of Croydon, to which the highly-respectable names of Dr. Arnott and Mr. Page were attached as the reporters, that they gave it as their opinion that the introduction of the Board of Health Act into Croydon had been most disastrous, and that the system of the sewerage had only been productive of disease. A statement had been made by Sir Benjamin Hall in the House of Commons, that the Public Health Bill was not intended to apply to the metropolis; bat he believed that both the Public Health Bill and the Nuisances Removal Bill affected the whole of England, for by the 88th clause of the Public Health Act the overseers were called upon to see that the Nuisances' Removal Act was put in force. The former act was tricky in itself, for while it professed that the act could only be adopted with the consent of the inhabitants, by comparing that clause with sections 32 and 41, they would find that this clause was perfectly nugatory, and had only been put in to blind the public and to deceive them in what they had in view. It was stated in clauses 27 to 32 that the bill would not be put in operation in a town unless on a petition of one-tenth of the inhabitants, but, taking the male adults, that is less than 2 per cent. of the whole inhabitants. Another clause enabled the board to make a provisional order without any inquiry, and without any opportunity being given to the persons most affected of knowing that in which he was most intimately concerned. He had no access whatever to the reasons that induced the board to confirm, as they called it, an act of the House of Commons. Mr. Smith then proceeded to comment on several other clauses, and said the spirit of them was altogether opposed to the views of Lord Palmerston, who stated to him last year that he objected to the entry of any premises without notice. If they submitted to this bill, and allowed it to be carried through the House of Commons, their property would virtually be taken from them. He concluded by proposing the first resolution, "That this meeting pledges itself to take all con-" stitutional measures to prevent the Public Health and Nuisances Removal Bills passing into law, until they are deprived of their arbitrary and oppressive clauses."

22

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We understand that the committee appointed at the influential and crowded meeting at the London Tavern, on the above subject, on Tuesday last, have already taken measures of the most energetic character to oppose the passing, in their present shape, of the above characteristic offsprings of Whig functionarism. The mistake made by many of those who are opposing these bills is, that they see only their individual interests. The committee ap pointed at the meeting at the London Tavern take, as that meeting itself did, a much higher ground. They look at these bills in their relations to the whole mass of the community, and to the mutual interests of all classes.

Proceeding upon such broad grounds, we cannot doubt that the opposition organised by them will be successful in preventing the insidious attempts that are being made, under pretence of care for the public and the poor, to fasten on the land a permanent host of functionaries, and to extend further that most dangerous system of summary jurisdiction, and of invasion of all the rights of property, which has made such alarming progress under Whig auspices of late years. Other towns are about to follow the example set by the London Tavern meeting and by the corporation of Birmingham, and to oppose these bills vigorously on public, and not on any narrow, selfish grounds. Such is the only opposition that can command respect and secure success.

Last night'a public meeting was held, at the New Vestry Hall of St. Mary's, Lambeth, for the purpose of taking into consideration the provisions of the Nuisances Removal and Public Health Bills, introduced into parliament by Sir Benjamin Hall. The chair was taken by Mr. J. Rossiter.

Mr. Toulmin Smith then said, that great misapprehension seemed to exist with reference to his attendance at the meeting, but he wished to assure them that he had nothing to do with bringing it together. He had, however, been invited to attend it, and he thought that, had he not complied with the invitation, he would have been guilty of a want of courtesy to those who had invited him. It was not his intention to go in detail into the bill, but he wished to bring a few clauses under their notice-to show their arbitrary character, and he wished them to understand that in opposing the present measures they were not opposed to the removal of nuisances, but wished to see it effected by some simple and practical measure which would recognise the principle of local self-government. In their case it was true that the local authorities would, under the proposed measures, have some share in putting their provisions into execution, as their parish was a union in itself; but, generally speaking, the local authorities would be nothing but the mere stalking horses of the Central Board of Health. If these measures were allowed to pass in their present form, they would do away with those manufactures which made England what she was as a nation, but might second Arcadia. Here the perhaps make her a learned gentleman went into a detail of several clauses of the Nuisances Removal Bill, showing that an unconstitutional power of entry was given to the police; that the justices were in case of complaint left without a discretionary power; that the conditions of appeal were such as to entail hardships; and that an inquisitorial power was imposed upon the magistrates of picking out for punishment whatever member of the local board might have shown remissness in enforcing the provisions of the measure. The definition of a nuisance, too, was so vague that it was impossible to apply it with safety, and would give rise to arbitrary interference; that and shifting legislation were the two great evils they ought to avoid.

M. Berald 12 Mar, 13:32

We direct the earnest attention of our readers to the report of the committee appointed at the meeting held on the 6th inst. at the London Tavern to consider the "Nuisances Removal Bill." The document is able and explanatory. Its statements áre easily substantiated, its arguments thereon are carried cogently forward to a direct conclusion against this audacious attempt to "centralise" at any expense. We have not space to-day to deal at length with the report, but we shall return to the subject.

NUISANCES REMOVAL BILL, 1855.

The attention of members of parliament is respectfully but earnestly called to the following, which has been prepared and issued by order of the committee appointed at the public meeting held at the London Tavern on the 6th of March, 1855:

This bill is wrongly entitled. Its correct title would be: -"A Bill to unsettle all Property, to oppress the Poor, and to suppress Trade and Enterprise." The actual effects of the bill, as it now stands, will be, that any man's house in England may be entered at will, without notice or pretext, by any police officer or petty official; that any manufactory of any kind may be stopped and prohibited; and that the beast of any man, or even the stock of any farm, may be carried off at caprice, and without redress! Such is the modern style of "amendment of the law."

All sound legislation must be definitive in its objects, and efficient, but safe, in its mode of dealing with those objects. A bill pretending to "amend" what it admits to be former "defective" legislation, doubly needs to be thus marked. Legislation pretending to have care for human welfare has it as its first essential to secure that no conditions on which human welfare depends are disregarded.

This bill disregards the conditions of human welfare; is unsafe and inefficient in the means it employs; and indefinite, vague, and merely arbitrary in the objects it includes.

Free action, intelligence, enterprise, prosperity, wholly depend on the insured use and enjoymeut of property. The only use of law is to secure this ensured use and enjoyment of property, and that liberty of action which is identified with it. Law, without certainty, has no being. Property and enterprise and liberty are mere fictions, unless this certainty is felt. Property or enterprise, made dependent on shifting legislation, is destroyed.

This bill unsettles equally the use and enjoyment of property and free action, the existence of law, and the very idea of certainty. The loose legislation of late years, the fruit of a sickly but pedantic sentimentalism, has unbappily already tended very much in this direction. But this bill goes beyond all former attempts. Enterprise is treated by it as a crime-property as an offence.

The common law of England as to the fact of nuisances is clear and sound. And the means of ascertaining and preventing whatever is a nuisance are, by the common law of England, equally safe and efficient. Practicalness, not sentimentalism, is the guide in each case.

A nuisance is, by the common law of England, whatever is, in itself, more injurious to the general welfare than is compensated for by the amount of good it produces. It is, essentially, a matter dependent on conditions, and in every case able, and obliged, to be determined only by compari son of conditions. The only safe and efficient means (and heretofore the unevadible law) for determining these conditions, are a jury of indifferent men, having habits, occu

pations, and associations which make them able to under. stand and appreciate such conditions rightly; and, being several minds, sure to see the different points of those conditions, and not to judge capriciously.

As an isolated fact, there is not a single thing in the world that may not be called by somebody a nuisance. A hedge-row or a tree is a nuisance to the man who wants unshaded sunshine. His neighbour's house is a nuisance to the man who wants a larger garden. His neighbour's garden is a nuisance to the man who loves the bustle of a town, and would build workshops and extend his trade. There are "" offensive accumulations" in each case, according to the ideas of one or the other man, and looking to individual self-interest or convenience only. Happily, beretofore, the law has ensured property and enterprise against interference from the arbitrary whims or personal piques of any. That has been the great function of the law. But this bill lets loose against every man the arbitrary whim and personal pique of anybody.

Where would the trade and commerce, the prosperity and greatness of England be, had a sickly sentimentalism been allowed heretofore, under pretences of public health or any other, to interfere with the public welfare, to kill out enterprise, and annihilate every right of property, as is proposed by this bill? What are Birmingham and Manchester, and Leeds and Liverpool, and Sheffield and Bristol, but masses of "offensive accumulations," according to the dogmas of the sickly sentimentalists who would now set up this novel legislation? No doubt, in some senses, these great towns, these flourishing communities of tall chimneys and noisy workshops, are nuisances. But are not these some of those very conditions that have produced, and are the sources and mainstays of, the prosperity and general welfare of the nation, of the whole country, and of all the millions who inhabit it; millions who, amid all the cant about the public health, are the longest-lived people upon earth? And shall these towns and all the conditions that surround them, that are inherent in their existence, as well as those which fol low from them, be swept away-all their furnaces be put out, their retorts cooled, their chimneys lowered-at the arbitrary bidding of a Board of Health which would have us all to be always "babbling o'green fields?”

While the above more general considerations must be borne constantly in mind if this subject is to be practically understood and dealt with, some of the special characteristics of this bill must be more closely looked at.

As to what it pleases to call nuisances, it sets up arbitrary dogmas without any reference to conditions. As to the means to be employed, it would suppress all trial by jury, and set up everywhere in its place the system of irresponsible summary jurisdiction, administered by those least competent of any to judge rightly on such matters. Law, which ought to exist only to secure property and action, is to be made an instrument for unsettling and rondering insecure both. Parliament, whose function is that of the "maintenance of the law," is invoked only to unloosen it. As to the "amended" bill, ordered to be printed on the 23d of February, particular attention must be called to the fact that, while it was expressly stated that this "amendment was merely pro forma, and in order to separate some parts of the bill, as introduced on the 3d of January,-and therefore only the bill was so allowed to be "amended," and so referred to the select committee, without even being in the hands of the house, there have, in fact, been introduced into the bill, as printed under colour and pretence of that so sanctioned amendment, very many and various alterations, every one of them rendering the bill more offensive and dangerous. These will escape attention unless the two editions of the bill are carefully compared, section by section. It is sometimes only a word or two; sometimes several lines; but there is hardly a section without some such alterations, and with the same invariable intention in every case. Surely this is a state of facts calling for the very grave consideration of all who respect the functions, the honour, and the independence of parliament.

There being, owing to much late empirical legislation, which has perverted the regular and safe course of the law, matters unquestionably needing to be dealt with in respect to the treatinent of common nuisances, the sound aim would have been to ensure that nothing should be left arbitrary, and that the conditions should be made the essential element in every case. To accomplish this, a responsible and reliable instrument for determining such conditions (which did for merly exist in every parish) should have been restored to

action. All this was possible and easy: nothing of it is done. Instead of a brief, practical, and carefully-prepared bill, this is long and cumbrous: the work of a more unpractical band was never laid on the table of the house : even ordinary care is wanting. Of improvement, of "model" form, of the practical adaptation of any principle, there is no trace. Instead of fulfilling the primary needof making the law simple and settled, and with hope of permanency, such a bill cannot possibly remain unaltered for a session. Several sections, suggested by a practical hand-and not one of them originally provided for by the authors of this legislation-have been admitted, it is true. But they are accompanied by matter which will, to a great extent, neutralise the value, and even pervert the action, of the most important of them, while the animus of bureau. eracy runs through the whole bill.

To point out all the objectionable or imperfect details of this bill would be very tedious. A few points, of an obvious character, must be selected as illustrations.

Such an act, to be of any value, must be at once universal-ipso facto everywhere applied-and with a constantly felt sense of responsibility for efficient but sound action. This is not so. The nuisances committee (botter called the "health committee") is left optional. If any good is to be done, its existence and action must be made UNEVADIBLE, AS IT FORMERLY WAS, in every parish where none of the bodies before-named in the bill exists. The leaving the existence of such a committee optional shows, in the drawer of the bill, equally a hand unpractical and a mind uninformed. Every parish has to choose churchwardens: every parish has to choose overseers. Every parish heretofore had such a committee as this, active and effective. A hundred existing equally palpable illustrations migh be named. But health, on which so much care is pretended, is now (with all the cant about it) to be left to chance. (The dernier ressort of the guardians is worse than nothing.) To help bureaucracy all England is to be made a Balaklava-as Balaklava aud Scutari are themselves mere fruits and illustrations of bureaucracy.

Such a body, habitual and unevadible in every place, will have such care given to its appointment, that while the fact of its existence will be the greatest protection to the public against the making or sufferance of wanton nuisances, its action will be safe, considerate, unarbitrary, and guided by the fullest sense of a true rosponsibi ity, and by a constant regard to those conditions on which the reality of any alleged nuisance must always depend.

But this bill is contrived, in every way, to neutralise even the chance of right action in such a body.

Instead of the appointment of a committee-which every parish in England understands, and is in the constant habit of being left to the most convenient adaptations of each, the whole plan is marred by the pedantic attempt to dictate, and tie down to, modes and methods which only show how entirely the subject is un-apprehended by the drawer of the bill; who has evidently no knowledge whatever of even the mode of existence of those very parishes to which these clauses will apply. Among other things relating hereto, the reference made to the Lighting and Watching Act is simply delusive. It is the word kept to the ear, but entirely broken to the sense; and parliament will only be deceived by it. It would be impossible to explain, here, every point connected with this. It is enough that the Lighting, etc., Act, applies to a special, class of cases-and those cases not, from their very nature, the sort of cases in which this committee will, for the most part, be applicable; that that act has important provisions which are not embodied in this, while the provisions depending on the former are here embodied-making the whole a piece of inconsistency and motley unpracticalness, the absurdity of which cannot well be exceeded. It would really seem as if this bill must have been drawn by some one who wishes to bring ridicule on all publicly connected with it. The only remedy, as to the present point is, to strike out every word after the word "members," in line 17, p. 3, down to the end of section 8-and substitute nothing whatever in its place. If any statutory provisions were to be taken as a model, they should clearly be those of sect. 18 of the Highway Act, which does relate to similar objects, while the Lighting Act does not.

It must be distinctly understood that every one of the sections above included is liable to its own special and very plain objections in addition to these general ones.

The last clause of section 11, p. 7, will frustrate the action of any committee. It departs from the Lighting and Watching Act, and every similar act. It makes the obtaining of the funds subject to "order of two justices." It is perfectly clear that no committee or other body can ever act, unless the full responsibility and means are in its hands. It is by invoking the sense of a felt responsibility, and not by fettering this, that any man or any body can ever be urged to sound and useful action.

Section 12 pretends to define "nuisances." This is a thing impossible to do, for the reasons already shown. To attempt it is most mischievous. The absurdity of the attempts at definition in this section is very glaring. Passing over the unmeaning vagueness of "any unwholesome or dilapidated premises"-"source of endless absurdities," and passing over the next enumeration which will merely be the cover for impertinent and vexatious prying into any man's house and private premises, we find "any animal so kept as to be injurious to health." Whether to its own health, or that of others, is not stated. But the absurdity is palpable of calling the animal the nuisance. According to this bill, every animal, whether of a poor man or a farmer, may be seized and sold (see, further section 22) without redress or appeal, while the pigstye or the farmyard remain as they were. Then we have any decaying or offensive accumulation or deposit." This includes, in fact, everything on the earth or under it. All life and nature is but decay aud reproduction, in one form or other. There is nothing in the world that is not offensive to somebody in some shapo. To justify this section an act must be passed requiring that the laws of nature shall be reversed, and that decay and decomposition shall no longer go on, as now, in constant course, and as essential preludes to reproduction.

Sound legislation for the public health would seek to invoke the sense of responsibility on every side, and to stimulate science to the discovery and appliance of methods by which the processes of art and manufacture shall be carried on with least development of what can be offensive to any. But the dull incapacity of doctrinairism can see no method of propounding its nostrums except summary obliteration and prohibition. Hence the bill before us.

Sections 14 and 15, as to entry, &c., are monstrous. Violating every principle of right and justice, and every practice recognised by the law of England-which are necessary for the safety of every citizen, the sanctity of his home, and the security of his property, as well as for the just protection of trade and enterprise in processes and manufactures-any underling of any nominal "local authority" may, under these sections, at his own pleasure and caprice and without notice, enter any private premises, and call on any constable to help him. Is this a state of things that Englishmen will endure, or that parliament will so far forget itself as to lend sanction to? And, by clause 4, p. 7, this is even to extend to the execution of any arbitrary orders of the General Board of Health!!

It may be added that these sections are in direct opposition to what Lord Palmerston expressly assented to as just and right, in the bill of last session.

Section 16, and some others, introduce new words (in this "amended" bill), including the dangerous vagueness of "permission or sufferance," as a ground of liability. It is plain that such words are the mere cover for arbitrariness. This bill, it must be again remembered (compare sections 13, 14 the end of 34, &c.), makes the so-called "local authority" the mere instrument of carrying out the caprices of small and irresponsible officials. It recognises no true responsibility and free action in this body. What has been above said will show the want of principle of this. Its danger cannot be exaggerated. The present section 16 adds the power always held repugnant to the law of England-of forcing any man to criminate himself.

Section 19, in this "amended" edition of the bill, omits a most important clause, which stood in the edition of 23d January, recognising the right of application to the Court of Queen's Bench to set aside any order of prohibition. It is essential that this right should be maintained.

Section 20 is, for the most part, unintelligible; but, while giving no security that the cost of any ordered works shall not exceed the estimate, it absolutely prohibits any appeal even to the quarter sessions from the summary order of a "police magistrate," unless the estimate exceed 15. This may be very consistent with the pounds, shillings, and pence way in which right and morality, and everything else, seem to be now estimated; but it is mon

strously inconsistent with justice and equity. If a wrong is done the remedy should be open to everybody. No one will appeal if it is not worth his while to do so. It may often be more worth while to appeal against a wrong act involving singly 5l. than against another involving 50%,

Section 23 makes the premises chargeable with all costs and expenses, the amount of which is unrestricted. That is to say, all property is now to become liable to a new kind of charge, imposed entirely arbitrarily, and against which no purchaser can ever have any security.

To carry out the communistic principle of this bill section 25 provides the entirely novel arrangement that hereafter the question of rent due shall not be one to be settled between landlord and tenant, or by the courts of law, but that "such parties" (the " police magistrates") "shall have power to inquire into and determine what rent is due." There is entire novelty in this, at any rate.

Section 31, to be properly understood, must be compared with the last clause of section 12, and also with section 17, and with what has been said on section 19. These various sections and alterations aim a direct blow at every manufacture in Great Britain. They are entirely unjustifiable and unnecessary. The common law as to nuisances is entirely sufficient to meet every case of manufactures the conditions of which involve an actual nuisance. The introduction of such clauses, therefore, shows the determination to attack the manufacturing enterprise of the country. Its result can only be to drive that manufacturing enterprise out of the country. The utmost that would be justifiable would be, that the "local authority" (not any of its officials), made really responsible, as above pointed out, should be authorised to institute a prosecution, according to the course of law, in cases where a nuisance is deemed to exist. The constant sense of responsibility would, on the one hand, prevent vexatious prosecution, and, on the other, would not allow real nuisance to go unchecked. The way in which this bill proposes to deal with such matters is equally unjust in its intention, and monstrous in the method it proposes. The distinction between neighbourhoods brought to a nuisance, and nuisances brought to a neighbourhood is one which common honesty at once sees, and which our law has always recog nised, and must always recognise. This rests on higher and firmer principles and guarantees than any loose dictum of a judge. This distinction is not only entirely lost sight of in this bill, but it has been expressly stated that it will not be regarded in legislation on the matter,

This involves an entire violation of the first principles of the rights of property, and of liberty as consisting in the free use of property.

The fundamental idea and principle of "property" is, that each man shall so use his own as not to interfere with the equal use of their own by his neighbours. But this principle is equal-sided. Fair play all on one side is not a thing consistent with honesty or justice. When it has once been admitted, either directly or impliedly, that the mode of use of his own by one man is not inconsistent with the best use any other can then make of his own, the latter cannot turn round, after the lapse of time and change of circumstances, and complain of such mode of use. Every day sees this illustrated. No man can, after a certain lapse of time, stop up an easement of light, or of watercourse, or of public way--merely to suit some fresh-conceived convenience of his own. The cases, as to manufactures, are exactly parallel. A man goes out from town and builds a factory. He hurts no man. Dwellings grow up near the factory. Insensibly, shops and a town neighbourhood spring up. Then the neighbouring owners find the value of their ground increased. They desire to use it for fresh purposes, to which the existence of this factory then makes some hindrance. So, according to the new doctrine, the equal right of use of property is to be disregarded, in their favour, and against the other. They are to have more, and he less, than their equal right of use. It is clear to common honesty and common sense that, if another and a fresh use, of greater value than heretofore (either in respect of rent, or health, or anything else that is valuable), is sought, one or more cannot be allowed to be the gainers, by means of the confiscation of the property of another, who began with simple equal right of use; but that the same equal right must be maintained, by the payment, by those who seek to gain, to him who relinquishes, of the full value of what the latter so relinquishes. This is so plain that it can need no enforcement on any man's sense of jus

tice. Unless, then, it is intended to be distinctly avowed that it is the design of parliament to drive manufactures and trade out of England, it must be expressly declared, on the face of this bill, that "nothing in this act contained shall be taken to apply to the case of any trade, manufacture, or business, carried on in its usual and accustomed manner, in any place or places where it might be lawfully carried on at the time of the establishment of such trade, manufacture, or business." Provision may usefully be added for the assessment of compensation in certain cases in which circumstances make the removal of a special manufacture, or the employment of costly processes, essential to the health of the neighbourhood, without any fault or neglect on the part of the conductors of the manufacture.

This bill is one which affects every class of society, and all occupations. The poor man, whose rent depends on his pig, is destined to be as much its victim as the wealthy manufacturer. Englishmen justly prize the sanctity of home; and it has heretofore been the boast of our law that it secures liberty and property. On the security and prosperity of the trade and manufacturing enterprise of the land depends the greater part of the wealth and welfare of the country, through every class and occupation. This bill endangers every class and occupation; the property of every man; the possi bility of carrying on trade and manufactures; the sanctity of every man's home. Endangering these, it destroys them; for their existence depends on the certainty of the security for them.

Shall, theu, such a bill be allowed to pass into law, merely because it does not suit the purpose of bureaucratic functionaries to respect the principles of the law of England and to support a measure simple, safe, and effective, which shall, at the same time, secure all against wanton nuisances, and every man against arbitrary interference with his enterprise, liberty, and property?

DISREGARD OF FAIR PLAY, AND OF THE USAGE OF PARLIAMENT.

THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TABLE.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

It is the universal rule, in every honest and constitutional tribunal (and such is the rule of both Houses of Parliament), that whoever is interested in the result may be challenged as improper to be among the judges. It is the universal rule of the House of Commons that the promoter of a bill referred to a select committee appears, by himself or counsel, before that committee to support his bill. The government itself did this in the case of its Water Bill, in 1851. It is unheard of that the promoter should, instead of this, sit on the inner side of the table, and be himself a member of the committee.

Not only are rules so universal, and obviously essential to justice and fair play, disregarded in the case of the select committee now sitting on the Public Health and Nuisances Removal Bills, but Sir Benjamin Hall, the promoter of these two bills-and interested in the result-actually occupies the chair of the committee!

It is worthy of particular attention, that on the 27th June, 1844, it was recorded in an express resolution of the House of Commons-"That the rule of this house relating to the vote, upon any question in the house, of a member having an interest in the matter upon which the vote is given, applies likewise to any vote of a member so interested, in a committee."

Yet Sir Benjamin Hall, the President of the Board of Health-and, in that capacity, the promoter, having the deepest interest in the success of the two bills abovenamed--not only sits and votes on the committee, but sits and acts as chairman of that committee; thereby of neces'sity exercising far more than the influence of an individual vote over the course of its proceedings.

How can this be reconciled either with common right and fair proceeding, or with the letter and spirit of the above-quoted deliberate record of the House of Commons itself?