Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/2151

Rh ELECTRICITY, Supply of Electricity may be supplied either under a licence or provisional order from the Board of Trade or under a special Act, but, except in so far as such licence, order or special Act otherwise provide, the supply of electricity is governed by the following provisions:—

Where in any district electricity is provided for private purposes, every person in such district is entitled, on application, to a supply on the same terms as those on which any other person therein is entitled under similar circumstances to a corresponding supply.

In making agreements for a supply, the company must not show any undue preference to any person; but otherwise they may make such charges as may be agreed upon, not exceeding the limits of price imposed by their licence, order, or special Act.

The company are not entitled to prescribe any special form of lamp or burner, but no one may use any form of lamp which unduly or improperly interferes with the supply of electricity to others.

Any officer appointed by the company may at all reasonable times enter any premises to which electricity is supplied for the purpose of inspecting the meters, fittings, etc., and of ascertaining the quantity of electricity consumed.

Penalties payable under Certain Circumstances.—Any person who maliciously or fraudulently abstracts, causes to be wasted or diverted, consumes or uses any electricity will be guilty of simple larceny and punishable accordingly.

The penalties imposed for injuring any pipe, meter, or fittings of a gas company, or altering or tampering with a gas meter, or abstracting, wasting or misusing gas (as to which see p. 1944), apply equally in cases where electricity is supplied, with the substitution of "electric line" for "pipe," etc.

Recovery of Charges in Arrear.—If any charge for electricity or any sum due in respect to its supply be unpaid, the company may disconnect the means of supply; but on payment of such charge or other sum, together with the expenses incurred in severing the connexion, the supply must be restored. If any such sums be not paid, they may be recovered either in an action or summarily as civil debts.

Incoming Tenant.—Where the occupier of premises leaves without paying the charges due for electricity supplied or for the rent of the meter, the incoming tenant cannot be required by the company to pay such arrears, unless he undertook with the former tenant to do so.

FENCES In the absence of evidence to the contrary, where two fields are separated by a hedge and ditch, the hedge and ditch belong to the owner of the field in which the ditch is not. If, however, the owner of the field in which the ditch is has pruned the hedge and trimmed the ditch for twenty years with the knowledge and acquiescence of the adjoining owner, he will acquire a prescriptive right thereto. Where there is a ditch on both sides of the hedge a right to the hedge can only be proved by acts of ownership.

Repair of Fences.—The general rule is that a person must keep his own cattle from trespassing, but he is under no obligation to maintain any fence against his neighbour's cattle unless his neighbour has acquired a prescriptive right to have such fence. The mere fact, however, that a person has for more than twenty years kept up a fence between his own and the adjoining land is not in itself, sufficient to give the owner of the latter a right to have the fence maintained; but if during that period the hedge had from time to time been repaired at the request, or upon complaint, by the adjoining owner, it would be otherwise. If there be a prescriptive obligation to repair, the person upon