join with any persons in any such improvements as aforesaid, and to take, by agreement or by gift, any land, rights in land, or property, for the purposes aforesaid (or otherwise) for the improvement of the metropolis, on such terms and conditions as they may think fit; and such board, where it appears to them that further powers are required for the purpose of any work for the improvement of the metropolis or public benefit of the inhabitants thereof, may make applications to parliament (b) for that purpose, and the expenses (c) of such application may be defrayed as other expenses of the said board: [Provided always, that before the this section is declared to apply to applications to parliament for the purpose of parks, pleasure grounds, places of recreation, &c. See the 19 & 20 Vict. c. 112, s. 11, post, empowering vestries to take land by agreement or gift for pleasure grounds, &c.; and sect. 72 of 25 & 26 Vict. c. 102, post, empow ering vestries and district boards, with consent of metropolitan board, to effect improvements within their parish or district, and to borrow money for that purpose, and sect. 73, giving the same bodies powers under the 57 Geo. 3, c. 29, for improving and regulating streets. See clauses, post, Appendix, and see note (d) to sect. 152. (b) The Acts of parliament which have been obtained by the metropolitan board under the power given by this enactment are the 20 & 21 Vict. c. 115, for opening new streets in the city and liberties of Westminster and borough of Southwark; the 20 & 21 Vict. c. 150, for the formation of a park for the northern suburbs of the metropolis, to be called Finsbury Park; and 21 Vict. c. 38, for the promotion of an improved communication between Limehouse and the Victoria Park, in the county of Middlesex, and for other purposes. (c) Where a waterworks company was empowered by a statute to supply water to a district, it was decided that it was competent to them to apply to parliament for an extension of their powers. Bateman v. Mayor of Ashton under Lyne, 3 H. & N. 323. As to the costs of application to parliament by local bodies, see Attorney-General v. Andrews, Commissioner of Southampton, 14 Jur. 905. Commissioners of sewers were held entitled to levy a rate for costs bona fide, and prudently incurred in opposing a bill likely to injure a level, this being a litigation arising out of their duties within the meaning of the 16th section of 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 22; and a local board are entitled to Powers of metropolitan metropolitan board of works commence any such works the estimated expense whereof shall exceed fifty thousand pounds, the plan of such works, together with an estimate of the cost of carrying the same into execution, shall be submitted by such board to the commissioners of Her Majesty's works and public buildings; and no such plan shall be carried into effect until the same has been approved by such commissioners; and no such works shall be commenced in cases where the estimated expense thereof shall exceed the sum of one hundred thousand pounds without the previous sanction of parliament] (d). Determination of Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. CXLV. From and after the commencement of this Act commission- all duties, powers, and authorities vested in the metroto cease (e). politan commissioners of sewers shall cease to be so vested; and in the meantime, and until such commence ers of sewers oppose proceedings instituted against them on account of works which they had executed; R. v. Marris, on pros. Worksop Local Board of Health, 21 J. P. 580. But a local board are not entitled at the expense of the ratepayers to oppose a local bill promoted by a gaslight company to obtain extended powers. See further, R. v. Worksop Local Board of Health, 21 J. P. 451; Bright v. North, 2 Ph. 216; Attorney-General v. Wigan, 23 L. J. (N. S.) Ch. 429; Attorney-General v. Eastlake, 17 Jur. 801; East Anglian Railway Company v. Eastern Counties Railway Company, 11 C. B. 775; and observations of Lord Campbell, C. J. in R. v. Marris, 21 J. P. 580, as to opposition to private bills out of the rates, and as to the propriety of first obtaining the assent of the ratepayers, R. v. Marris, ubi supra. (d) This proviso is repealed by the 21 & 22 Vict. c. 104, s. 25, post, and the approval of the commissioners of works and previous sanction of parliament in the cases specified are no longer necessary. (e) The Acts relating to the metropolitan commissioners of sewers are the Metropolitan Sewers Act, 1848, the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 112, and the continuing and amending Acts, the 12 & 13 Vict. c. 93, 14 & 15 Vict. c. 75, 15 & 16 Vict. c. 64, 16 & 17 Vict. c. 125, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 111. An Act was also passed in ment, the metropolitan commission of sewers, and the Act of the session holden in the eleventh and twelfth years of Her Majesty, chapter one hundred and twelve, and the Acts amending the same, shall continue in force. 1855, 18 Vict. c. 30, giving certain special powers in relation to expenditure on house drainage. All have now expired. The first of the above-named Acts incorporated the 23 Hen. 8, c. 5, with certain exceptions, but none of those provisions are incorporated with the present Act, but the powers of the board and vestries constituted by it are contained in substantive enactments. The 182nd section, however, preserves to the metropolitan board the powers conferred by the first of the above Acts in relation to improvement rates. The limits of the metropolitan sewers commission very materially differed from those of the metropolis, as defined by the present Act. See, as to the latter, interpretation of the word "metropolis," sect. 225. The metropolitan commission of sewers, which was issued under the power contained in the 1st section of the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 112, included the limits of the commissions commonly known as those of Westminster and part of Middlesex, the Holborn and Finsbury, the Poplar and Blackwall, the Tower Hamlets, Saint Katherine's, the Surrey and Kent, and the Greenwich. The first metropolitan commission, issued in January, 1849, included within it, under a provision contained in the 1st section of the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 112, the parts subject to the jurisdiction of the commissioners acting under 5 Geo. 4, c. 100, the Regent's Park, Regent Street, &c., issued in October, 1849, and the second added to its other districts the parish of Chiswick. The limits were thus described in that and subsequent commissions:-"Within the limits of the city and liberties of Westminster and the borough of Southwark, or in the borders or confines of the same; within the limits of the parishes of Hampton, Teddington, Twickenham, Isleworth, Hanwell, Brentford, Acton, Ealing, Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington, and Chelsea, in the county of Middlesex, and to and within the city and liberty of Westminster, and precincts of the same, and to Temple-bar, within the said county, and from thence to and within the parish of St. Giles in the Fields and Saint George, Bloomsbury, Saint Pancras, Saint Marylebone, Hampstead, Willesden, and Paddington, and so to the river Thames in the county aforesaid, or in the borders or confines of the same; within the limits of the Holborn and Finsbury divisions, the parish of Saint Leonard, Shoreditch, and the liberty of Norton Falgate, in the county of Middlesex, or in the borders or confines of the same; within the limits of and Actions, &c. but to con works. CXLVI. No action, suit, prosecution, or other proceednot to abate, ing whatsoever, commenced or carried on by or against tinue for or the said commissioners, shall abate or be discontinued against metropolitan or prejudicially affected by the determination of the board of powers of such commissioners, but shall continue and take effect in favour of or against the metropolitan board of works in the same manner in all respects as the same would have continued and taken effect in relation to the said commissioners if this Act had not been passed, and the powers of the said commissioners had continued in full force; and all decrees and orders made, and all fines, amerciaments, and penalties imposed and incurred, respectively, previously to the commencement of this Act, between Limehouse and Blackwall, in the several parishes of The commissioners did not deal with the whole of the area comprised within the foregoing limits, but confined the exercise of their power to what was designated their "active ju shall and may be enforced, levied, recovered, and proceeded for, and all administrative proceedings commenced previously to the commencement of this Act shall and may be continued, proceeded with, and completed, the metropolitan board of works being, in reference to the matters aforesaid, in all respects substituted in the place of the said commissioners. sewers to be under this CXLVII. All rates made by the said commissioners Rates made by metropopreviously to the commencement of this Act, or so much litan comthereof as may not have been levied and paid, shall be missioners of levied by and paid to the metropolitan board of works, recoverable and such board shall have the same rights and remedies Act (f). in all respects in relation thereto as would have been had and might have been exercised by the said commissioners; but all such rates respectively shall, so far as circumstances admit, be applied to the same purposes as the same would have been applicable to in case the powers of the said commissioners had continued in force, and shall for the purposes of such application (where the circumstances so require) be paid over by the metropolitan board of works, or by their order, to the vestry or district board having the management of the sewers in any parish or district under this Act, or as such vestry or board may direct. vested in commissioners of CXLVIII. All property, matters, and things whatso- Property ever vested in the metropolitan commissioners of sewers, metropolitan except such sewers as are hereby vested in any vestry or district board, and except such sewers as are not sewers within the limits of the parishes and places mentioned (except sewin the schedules to this Act, shall be vested in the metro- ferred to politan board of works; and all persons who then owe district any money to the said commissioners of sewers, or to risdiction," which was divided into districts and levels, in conformity with the 34th and 35th sections of the Act of 1848. (f) See action brought by the metropolitan board to recover arrears of rates due to the metropolitan commissioners of sewers, Metropolitan Board of Works v. Vauxhall Bridge Company, 26 L. J. (N. S.) Q. B. 253, and observations in note (h) to sect. 161.. ers trans vestries and boards) transferred |