32 
Trunk Drainage. 
him l>clore two Justices of the Peace. These Justices, upon 
proof of the injury inflicted by his neglect, and of the expenses 
incurred in remedying it, may make an order for his payment 
of such proportion as they may think fit, together with the costs, 
the amounts being recoverable by distress. This is the process 
only when the faulty drain is a l^oundary of or immediately 
adjoining to tlie land of the damaged occupier ; but unless this 
be the case, it is enacted in the 15th section, that "it shall not 
be lawful for the occupier, whose land shall have been injured, 
to enter upon the land of any other person in the execution of 
the works aforesaid without a warrant or authority in writing so 
to do from two or more Justices, Avhich warrant or authority 
such Justices shall grant upon inquiry had before them, after a 
summons served upon the occupier of the land so to be entered 
upon, if it shall appear to such Justices that the neglect of the 
occupier of the land so to be entered upon has occasioned injury 
to the lands of the occupier applying for such warrant or autho- 
rity : Provided also, that it shall be lawful for the Justices 
before whom any occupier of land shall l)e summoned to appear 
under this Act, and whether such proprietor or occupier shall or 
shall not have appeared, to adjourn the hearing or further hear- 
ing of any application for any order, or for any warrant or 
authority junder this Act, to a subsequent day, and to appoint a 
competent person to view in the meantime the drain, stream, or 
watercourse, and to report thereon to the Justices on the day to 
which such hearing shall have been adjourned, or the said Jus- 
tices or any of them may in the meantime attend and view such 
drain, stream, or watercourse." All the expenses and the costs 
of adjudication to be levied by distress and sale of goods and 
chattels of the party liable. 
Perhaps this law affords us as much scope for the compulsion 
of bad neighbours to their duty in drainage matters as we can 
expect to enjoy with no regular organization of district officers, 
and with no constituted judges beyond the magistracy who pos- 
sess the legal authority necessary to the invasion of other men's 
property or holdings. It has been remarked, that the necessity 
of giving formal and legal notices — the uncertainty and delay of 
obtaining a warrant from two Justices in Petty Sessions — ^the 
personal annoyance of appearing as an opponent to a neighbour, 
who, peradventure, may be a magistrate himself — the disagree- 
able process of levying a distress for costs and expenses — and 
sundry other invidious discomforts and troubles attending these 
provisions of the Act, render them practically nugatory : but 
were a better system of inspecting and enforcing tlie renovation 
of choked drains to be devised, it would still be a most unpleasant 
task to bring down the arm of the law upon one's indolent and 
