⁂ All penalties, forfeitures, costs, and expenses, directed to be recovered in a summary manner, or not otherwise provided for, may be prosecuted and recovered under the “Summary Jurisdiction Acts” before a court of summary jurisdiction (P. H. S. 251); but proceedings for the recovery of penalties are only to be taken by the person aggrieved, or by the local authority of the district, except the consent in writing of the Attorney-General be obtained. But this restriction does not apply to the proceedings of a local authority with regard to nuisances, offensive trades, houses, &c., without their district, in cases in which the local authority are authorised to take proceedings with respect to any act or default (s. 253).
Unless otherwise provided for the penalty is thus applied: One half goes to the informer, and the remainder to the local authority of the district in which the offence was committed; but if the local authority be the informer, they are entitled to the whole of the penalty recovered.
All penalties and sums recovered by a local authority are paid to the treasurer, and carried to the account of the fund applicable to the general purposes of the Public Health Act.
(The justices or court have power to reduce penalties imposed by 6 Geo. IV, c. 78. P. H. Part III.)
PEN′CILS. This name is applied to the small brushes made of camel’s hair used by artists, as well as to the plumbago crayons familiarly known as black-lead pencils. The last are prepared by one or other of the following methods:—
1. The blocks of plumbago are exposed to a
bright-red heat in a closely covered crucible, and are afterwards sawn into minute sticks, and mounted in cases of cedar or satin wood.
2. The plumbago, in powder, is calcined as before, and then mixed with an equal, or any other desired proportion of pure washed clay, also in powder, after which the mixture is reduced to a plastic state with water, and pressed into grooves cut on the face of a smooth board, or into well-greased wooden moulds, in which state it is left to dry. When dry, the pieces are tempered to any degree of hardness by exposing them, surrounded by sand or powdered charcoal, in a closely covered crucible to various degrees of heat. The crucible is not opened until the whole has become cold, when the prepared ‘slips’ are removed and mounted as before. This method was invented by M. Conté in 1795.
3. The dough or paste, prepared as last, is reduced to the required form by forcing it through a perforated plate (in a similar manner to that adopted for coloured crayons), or into minute metallic cylinders, from which it may be readily shaken after it has become partially dry.
Obs. The leads for some varieties of drawing-pencils are immersed for a minute in very hot melted wax or suet before mounting them. To the composition for others a little lampblack is added, to increase and vary the degree of blackness. The pencils for asses’ skin books and prepared paper are tipped with ‘fusible metal.’ Numerous improvements in pencil cases and pencil mounts have been patented of late years by Stevens and others.