[139] Or owner.
[140] Vide ‘Fitzgerald’s Public Health and Local Government Act 1875,’ 3rd edition, p. 175.
[141] Care must be taken that the mode of construction “directed by the commissioners” authorises this part of the notice.
[142] In the City of London these patent lights have been fixed in the pavement round the whole of the frontage of Mansion House Buildings, at the corner of Queen Victoria Street, and also over the whole of the pavements in Draper’s Gardens, besides many other equally crowded thoroughfares, without the least inconvenience being experienced.
[143] In the Act the words used are “shoot” and “trough.”
[144] These words must be omitted if there is no special Improvement Act.
[146] Sir Fred. Parnell in his celebrated work upon roads has the following paragraph upon this subject:—
The great advantage of having a road perfectly exposed to the action of the sun and wind will be more accurately conceived by referring to writers of science on evaporation. Dr. Hailey states that one-tenth of an inch of the surface of the sea is raised per diem in vapour. He also says that the winds lick up the water somewhat faster than it exhales by the heat of the sun. Other writers say the dissipation of moisture is much accelerated by the agency of sweeping winds, the effects being sometimes augmented five to ten times.
Trees are particularly injurious by not allowing the sun and wind to have free action on the surface of roads producing evaporation. Besides the benefit which a road receives from its drying rapidly by an open exposure to the atmosphere, there is another of great importance, namely, that of affording to horses the advantage of free respiration; for it is well known that the powers of a horse to perform work with ease, particularly when moving rapidly, depends upon the quantity of cool and fresh air that he can pass through his lungs. If the cause of horses tiring or becoming ill under their work be carefully examined into, it will often be found that it is not their muscles or limbs that fail them, but their wind; and therefore, it is particularly important to have a road so circumstanced that a horse may on all parts of it have the benefit of a free current of air.