Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction Part 18

17. The secretary or other officer having the custody of the books and papers of any insurance company that is required to pay a contribution to the Board in pursuance of this Act shall allow any officer appointed by the Board to inspect, during the hours of business, any books and papers that will enable him to ascertain the amount of property insured by such company in the metropolis, and the amount for which it is insured, and to make extracts from such books or papers; and any secretary or other such officer as aforesaid of a company failing to comply with the requisitions of this section in respect of such inspections and extracts shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding five pounds for each offence.

18. The Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury shall pay or cause to be paid to the Board by way of contribution to the expenses of maintaining the fire brigade such sums as Parliament may from time to time grant for that purpose, not exceeding in any one year the sum of ten thousand pounds.

19. For the purpose of defraying all expenses that may be incurred by the Board in carrying into effect this Act which are not otherwise provided for, the Board may from time to time issue their precepts to the overseers of the poor of every parish or place within the metropolis, requiring the overseers to pay over the amount mentioned in the precepts to the Treasurer of the Board, or into a bank to be named in the precepts, within forty days from the delivery of the precept.

The overseers shall comply with the requisitions of any such precept by paying the sums mentioned out of any monies in their hands applicable to the relief of the poor, or by levying the amount required as part of the rate for the relief of the poor, but no contribution required to be paid by any parish or place under this section shall exceed in the whole in any one year the rate of one halfpenny in the pound on the full and fair annual value of property rateable to the relief of the poor within the said parish or place, such full and fair annual value to be computed in all parts of the metropolis, exclusive of the city of London, according to the last valuation for the time being acted on in a.s.sessing the county rate, or, where there is no county rate, according to a like estimate or basis; and no liberty, precinct, or place, shall be exempt from the rate leviable for the purposes of this Act by reason of its being extra-parochial or otherwise; and in default of proper officers in any liberty, precinct, or place, to a.s.sess or levy the said rate, the Board may appoint such officers, and add the amount of any expenses so incurred to the amount to be raised by the next succeeding rate in such liberty, precinct, or place.

Overseers shall, for the purposes of levying any amount required to be levied by them under this Act, have the same powers and be subject to the same obligations as in levying a rate for the relief of the poor.

The word "Overseers" shall include any persons or bodies of persons authorized or required to make and collect or cause to be collected rates applicable to the relief of the poor; and such persons or bodies shall pay to the Board the amount so mentioned in the precept out of the said rates.

20. In case the amount ordered by any such precept as aforesaid to be paid by the overseers of any parish or place be not paid in manner directed by such precept and within the time therein specified for that purpose, it shall be lawful for any justice of the peace, upon the complaint by the Board or by any person authorized by the Board, to issue his warrant for levying the amount or so much thereof as may be in arrear by distress and sale of the goods of all or any of the said overseers, and in case the goods of all the overseers be not sufficient to pay the same, the arrears thereof shall be added to the amount of the next levy which is directed to be made in such parish or place for the purposes of this Act, and shall be collected by the like methods.

21. The Board may, with the consent of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, borrow any sum not exceeding forty thousand pounds, and apply the same for the purposes of this Act; and all powers contained in the Metropolis Local Management Acts authorizing the Board to borrow money, or any commissioners or persons to lend money to the Board, and all other provisions as to the mode of borrowing, the repayment of princ.i.p.al or interest, or in anywise relating to borrowing by the Board, shall be deemed to apply and to extend to this Act in the same manner as if the monies borrowed in pursuance of this Act were monies borrowed for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the Metropolis Local Management Acts, or one or more of those acts. The Board shall apply the monies received by them under this Act in liquidation of the princ.i.p.al and interest of the monies so borrowed, but no creditor shall be concerned to see to such application, or be liable for any misapplication of the monies received or borrowed by the Board in pursuance of this Act.

MISCELLANEOUS.

22. Where any chief officer, or other person who has been employed by the Board in any capacity under this Act, and has been discharged therefrom, continues to occupy any house or building that may be provided for his use, or any part thereof, after one week's notice in writing from the Board to deliver up possession thereof, it shall be lawful for any police magistrate, on the oath of one witness, stating such notice to have been given, by warrant under his hand to order any constable to enter into the house or building occupied by such discharged chief officer or other person as aforesaid, and to remove him and his family and servants therefrom, and afterwards to deliver the possession thereof to the Board, as effectually, to all intents and purposes, as the sheriff having jurisdiction within the place where such house or building is situate might lawfully do by virtue of a writ of possession or a judgment at law.

23. If the chimney of any house or other building within the metropolis is on fire, the occupier of such house or building shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty s.h.i.+llings; but if such occupier proves that he has incurred such penalty by reason of the neglect or wilful default of any other person, he may recover summarily from such person the whole or any part of the penalty he may have incurred as occupier.

24. All penalties imposed by this Act, or by any byelaw made in pursuance thereof, and all expenses and other sums due to the Board in pursuance of this Act, in respect of which no mode of recovery is prescribed, may be recovered summarily before two justices in manner directed by the Act of the session holden in the eleventh and twelfth years of the reign of her present Majesty, chapter forty-three, or any Act amending the same, and when so recovered shall be paid to the treasurer of the Board, notwithstanding any police act or other act of parliament directing a different appropriation of such monies.

25. Any dispute or other matter which is by this Act directed to be determined summarily by two justices shall be deemed to be a matter in respect of which a complaint is made upon which they have authority by law to make an order for payment of money within the meaning of the said Act of the session holden in the eleventh and twelfth years of the reign of her present Majesty, chapter forty-three, or any Act amending the same.

26. Any act, power, or jurisdiction hereby authorized to be done or exercised by two justices may be done or exercised by the following magistrates within their respective jurisdictions; that is to say, by any metropolitan police magistrate sitting alone at a police court or other appointed place, or by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, or any alderman of the said City, sitting alone or with others at the Mansion House or Guildhall.

27. The accounts of the Board in respect of expenses incurred by them under this Act shall be audited in the same manner as if they were expenses incurred under the said Metropolis Local Management Acts, and the Board shall in each year make a report to one of her Majesty's princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State of all acts done and expenditure incurred by them in pursuance of this Act, and that report shall be laid before Parliament within one month after the commencement of the session.

28. The Board may delegate any powers conferred on them by this Act to a committee of their body; and such committee shall, to the extent to which such powers are delegated, be deemed to be the Board within the meaning of this Act.

29. If the companies insuring property within the metropolis, or any such number of them as may in the opinion of the said Board be sufficient, establish a force of men charged with the duty of attending at fires and saving insured property, it shall be the duty of the Fire Brigade, with the sanction of the Board, and subject to any regulations that may be made by the Board, to afford the necessary a.s.sistance to that force in the performance of their duties, and, upon the application of any officer of that force, to hand over to their custody property that may be saved from fire; and no charge shall be made by the said Board for the services thus rendered by the fire brigade.

30. It shall be lawful for the Board, when occasion requires, to permit any part of the fire brigade establishment, with their engines, escapes, and other implements, to proceed beyond the limits of the metropolis for the purpose of extinguis.h.i.+ng fires. In such case the owner and occupier of the property where the fire has occurred shall be jointly and severally liable to defray all the expenses that may be incurred by the Fire Brigade in attending the fire, and shall pay to the Board a reasonable charge for the attendance of the Fire Brigade, and the use of their engines, escapes, and other implements. In case of difference between the Board and the owner and occupier of such property, or either of them, the amount of the expenses, as well as the propriety of the Fire Brigade attending such fire (if the propriety thereof be disputed), shall be summarily determined by two justices. In default of payment, any expenses under this section may be recovered by the Board in a summary manner.

The Board may also permit any part of the Fire Brigade Establishment to be employed on special services upon such terms of remuneration as the said Board may think just.

31. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade shall in the morning of each day, with the exception of Sundays, send information, by post or otherwise, to all the insurance offices contributing for the purposes of this Act, of all fires which have taken place within the metropolis since the preceding return, in such form as may be agreed upon between the Board and the said companies.

32. All the powers now exercised by any local body or officer within the metropolis as respects fireplugs shall henceforth be exercised by the Board, and the Board shall be ent.i.tled to receive copies or extracts of all plans kept by any water company under the provision of the Act of the session of the fifteenth and sixteenth years of her Majesty, chapter eighty-four; and every such water company shall provide at the expense of the Board in any mains or pipes within the metropolis plugs for the supply of water in case of fire at such places, of such dimensions, and in such form as the Board may require, and the Fire Brigade shall be at liberty to make such use thereof as they may deem necessary for the purpose of extinguis.h.i.+ng any fire; and every such company shall deposit keys of all their fireplugs at such places as may be appointed by the Board, and the Board may put up on any house or building a public notice in some conspicuous place in each street in which a fireplug is situated, showing its situation.

33. "Owner" in this Act shall mean the person for the time being receiving the rackrent of the premises in connexion with which the word is used, either on his own account or as agent or trustee for some other person, or who would receive the same if the premises were let at rackrent.

_Repeal._

34. On and after the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, there shall be repealed so much as is unrepealed of an Act pa.s.sed in the fourteenth year of his late Majesty King George the Third, chapter seventy-eight, and int.i.tuled an Act for the further and better regulation of buildings and party walls, and for the more effectually preventing mischief by fire, within the Cities of London and Westminster and the liberties thereof, and other the parishes, precincts, and places within the weekly bills of mortality, the parishes of St. Marylebone, Paddington, St. Pancras, and St. Luke, at Chelsea, in the County of Middles.e.x, and for indemnifying, under certain conditions, builders and other persons against the penalties to which they are or may be liable for erecting buildings within the limits aforesaid contrary to law, with the exception of sections eighty-three and eighty-six which shall remain in full force, but such repeal shall not affect any penalty or liability incurred under the repealed sections.

35. On and after the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, section forty-four of an Act pa.s.sed in the session holden in the third and fourth years of the reign of King William the Fourth, chapter ninety, shall be repealed so far as respects any parish or place within the limits of the metropolis as defined by this Act; provided that the repeal of the said section shall not affect the power of the churchwardens and overseers of any parish or place to contribute to the funds of any society that at the time of the pa.s.sing of this Act maintains fire escapes in such parish or place, unless and until the Board purchase the property of such society, or otherwise provide fire escapes in such parish or place.

In accordance with the provisions of the above recited Act of Parliament, the London Fire Brigade of the Insurance Offices is now being extended to meet the requirements of the whole of London, under the t.i.tle of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, with Captain E. M. Shaw, Mr. Braidwood's successor, as chief officer.

LONDON:

SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN.