If you enjoy www.victorianlondon.org why not ...

[ ... back to main menu for this book]

Nuisances. — A few of the desagremens to which metropolitan flesh is heir have been legally settled to be “nuisances”.
(a) THE FOLLOWING WILL be summarily suppressed on appeal to the nearest police-constable:
Abusive language; Advertisements, carriage of (except in form approved); Areas left open without sufficient fence.
Baiting animals; Betting in streets; Bonfires in Streets; Books, obscene, selling in streets.
Carpet-beating; Carriage, obstruction by; Cattle, careless driving of; Coals, unloading, between prohibited hours; Cock-fighting; Crossings in streets, obstructing.
Defacing buildings; Deposit of goods in streets ; Dogs loose or mad; Doors, knocking at; Drunk and disorderly persons; Dust, removal of, between 10 am, and 7 p.m.
Exercising horses to annoyance of persons; Exposing goods for sale in parks.
Firearms, discharging; Fireworks, throwing in streets; Footways, obstructions on; Footways unswept; Furious driving; Furniture, fraudulent removal of between 8p.m. and 6 am,
Games, playing in streets.
Indecent exposure.
Lamps, extinguishing.
Mat-shaking after 8 a.m; Musicians in streets.
Obscene singing; Offensive matters, removal of, between 6 am. and 12  night.
Posting bills without consent;  projections from houses to cause annoyance.
Reins, persons driving without; Ringing door bells without excuse; Rubbish lying in thoroughfare.
Slides, making in streets; Stone-throwing.
Unlicensed public carriage.
(b) THE FOLLOWING WILL require an application to the police-courts:
Cesspools, foul.
Dead body, infectious, retained in room where persons live; Disease, person suffering from infectious, riding in public carriage, or exposing himself, or being without proper accommodation; Disorderly houses; Drains, foul.
Factory, unclean or overcrowded. Furnace in manufactory not consuming its own smoke; Food unfit for consumption, exposing.
Gaming houses.
House filthy or injurious to health.
Infected bedding or clothes, sale of.
Letting infected house or room; Lotteries.
Manufactures (making sulphuric acid, steeping skins, &c.); Manure, non-removal of; Milk, exposing, unfit for consumption.
Obstructions in highways, bridges, or rivers; Overcrowding of house.
Powder magazine, or keeping too large a quantity.
Theatres, unlicensed; Trades, offensive (keeping pigs, soap-house, slaughter-house, or manufactures in trade causing effluvia, &c.).
Want of reparation of highway; Warehousing inflammable materials; Water-fouling or polluting.
(c) THE FOLLOWING WILL require a summons in the County Court:
Any of those nuisances next-mentioned where the value or the rent of the premises in dispute, or in respect of which and over which the easement is claimed, shall not exceed £20 per annum; or where damages in a personal action not exceeding £50 are sought to be recovered, unless by consent of both parties.
(d) THE FOLLOWING WILL require a regular action at law:
Buildings from which water falls on to another house.
Commons, injury to soil, digging turf, injuring pasture.
Drainage, interruption of.
Encroachments on highways, rivers, streets, or squares.
Gas company fouling any stream.
Lights, obstruction of.
Party wall, paring off part of; Publication of injurious advertisements.
Rivers, pulling down banks of; Right of way, interruption of.
Sewage, conducting, into river; Stream, pollution or diversion of.
(e) THE FOLLOWING HAVE NOT been definitely settled either way, but may, under certain circumstances, be worth the cost and trouble of a trial:
Church bell-ringing
Hospital, infectious.
Manufactory, near house, introducing more noisy machinery, or new way of working it; Music,  powerful band near house.
Rifle practice; Rockets or fireworks, letting off, frequently.
Sewage contributed by several persons, amount contributed by each not being sufficient to cause a nuisance.

Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879