Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/551

523 INJUNCTIONS AGAINST LIQUOR NUISANCES. 523 criminal law, equity has never assumed jurisdiction. "It seems," says Hawkins,^ " that a common nuisance may be defined to be an offence against the publick, either by doing a thing which tends to the annoyance of all the King's subjects, or by neglecting to do a thing which the common good requires." And he cites as famil- iar instances, common bawdy-houses, stages for rope-dancers, gam- ing-houses, a common scold, etc. An injunction against a scold would indeed be a novelty. The jurisdiction of equity over a certain class of public nui- sances is, however, well settled, and proceeds upon clearly defined grounds. It is not, so far as reported cases go, of very ancient origin. In 1752,^ Lord Hardwick refused to enjoin the building of a smallpox hospital, and intimated that, if it were a public nui- sance, the remedy was by a criminal information by the Attorney General, referring to an unreported case of the stopping of a way behind the Exchange in the city, when Lord King had recom- mended the Attorney General to prefer an information in the King's Bench. In 1799,^ Lord Loughborough enjoined the put- ting of sugar in houses which would be rendered liable to fall thereby, but the case is poorly reported, and the ground for the decision not clear. In 181 1,* the jurisdiction was questioned by counsel, and Lord Eldon was unable to find any precedents other than the injunction granted by Lord Loughborough. He refused to grant a preliminary injunction against the maintenance of a soap factory. In 1816,^ upon an application in a suit to which the At- torney General was not a party, for an injunction against the use of a building as a powder mill. Sir Samuel Romilly, counsel for the plaintiffs, admitted that injury to property, not danger to life, was the only ground upon which equity could interfere, and upon this ground Lord Eldon granted a preliminary injunction. An earlier case. Attorney General v. Richards,^ decided in 1794, involved questions both of purpresture and nuisance, and is the first reported case of an injunction against a nuisance to the pub- lic right of navigation. The suit was by information in the Court of Exchequer to restrain the erection of wharves between high and 1 2 Pleas of the Crown, Bk. I. c. 75, § i. 2 Baines v. Baker, i Ambl. 158 ; s. c. 3 Atk. 750. 8 Mayor of London v. Bolt, 5 Ves. Jr. 129. 6 Crowder v. Tinkler, 19 Ves. Jr. 617. • 2 Anstr. 603.
 * Attorney General v. Cleaver, 18 Ves. Jr. 211.