Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/290

286 in equity is most effective, not only because it prevents threatened injury instead of operating upon harm which has been fully wrought, but in equity the defendant is required to terminate the nuisance under pain of punishment for contempt of the court's order. Frequently, however, at this point the controversy between the parties is hardly more than begun, for the form of injunction may be so indefinite as merely to prohibit causing material discomfort to the plaintiff or injuring his health, things which the defendant usually disavows doing from the beginning. The court struggles not to frame its injunction in such a way as to absolutely destroy the defendant's business, seeking rather some device by which the business may be continued without the accompanying nuisance, often a difficult and sometimes impossible task. The defendant may therefore succeed in having the injunction in so weak a form that it is ineffective, or he may after a period of compliance slowly resume the wrong doing, thus compelling the plaintiff to prove his case anew in contempt proceedings. While the private individual is thus seeking an injunction, the municipal body affected as to its property interest or as to its health, may as a matter of common law likewise procure an injunction.

Where the nuisance affects the right of the public, it is ordinarily punishable as a crime, and in some states abatement may be had by an order in the criminal proceedings.

Such is the law of nuisances relating to the public health. Laws do not execute themselves. A vigorous administration of statutory laws, adequate appropriations for the ascertainment and proof of the facts, enlightenment of the public mind as to the dangers from polluted streams and poisonous air, and a civic earnestness which not only will make easy the enforcement of law by public authorities, but will impel private individuals at some cost to themselves to set in operation the machinery of the common law, are all necessary. Many death-dealing nuisances await the attack of those who would protect public health.