Since this note was written we have seen, in a collection of the statutes passed in the time of the commonwealth, an act for the preventing of the multiplicity of buildings in and about the suburbs of London and within ten miles thereof, An. Dom. 1656, the preamble of which says, “Whereas the great and excessive number of houses, edifices, outhouses, and cottages, erected and new built in and about the suburbs of the city of London and the part thereunto adjoining, is found to be very mischievous and inconvenient, and a great annoyance and nuisance to the commonwealth; and whereas, notwithstanding divers prohibitions heretofore had and made to the contrary, yet the said growing evil is of late so much multiplied and increased that there is a necessity of taking some further and speedy course for the redress thereof;” certain fines and penalties are therefore directed to be levied on all new houses which have not four acres of land continually used with them, and commissioners are appointed to carry the act into execution. The exceptions in this statute may serve to elucidate the subject, Clare market, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Covent Garden, Shoe lane, and other places now in the centre of the town are exempted from the penalties, on account of the charges or covenants to which the owners had been or might be liable.
[556]. The Severn lately having overflown its banks into a lime-pit, a very considerable number of salmon and other fish were killed by it.
[557]. Old Book of Entries, fol. 406, edit. 1595, action upon the case brought for annoying a piscary with a gutter that came from a dye-house. Hutt. 136.
[558]. The smelts and flounders have been thus destroyed in the immediate vicinity of London.
[559]. By stat. 12, Gec. 3, c. 61, not more than 50lbs. may be kept in any one place within London and Westminster, or three miles circuit, nor within one mile of any city, borough, or market town, or within two miles of any of the King’s palaces or magazines, or one half mile of any parish church.
[560]. Principles of Military Surgery, by J. Hennen, M. D. edit. 2d, Edinburgh, 1820. See also Transactions of the College of Physicians in Dublin, vol. ii, p. 337.
[561]. Med. Leg. 1, 360.
[562]. Op. citat. p. 458.
[563]. See Parry’s Elements of Physiology.
[564]. See the evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, on the subject of Mendicity.