Odger's English Common Law

240 NUISANCE.
property, or prejudicially affects his health, comfort or con-
venience, is a nuisance. If a nuisance affects the property
or the health, comfort or convenience of the general public,
or of all persons who happen to come within its operation, it
is a public nuisance, although it may affect some persons
more than others. If, however, it affects the health, com-
fort or convenience of only one or two persons, it is a private
nuisance.
Thus where volumes of noxious smoke are emitted from a factory, a
public nuisance is committed, although those persons, who are nearer to the
factory in question and therefore suffer special inconvenience, might press
for its abatement as a private nuisance. So the stopping of the King's
highway is a nuisance to all who may have occasion to travel upon that
highway ; it may be a much greater nuisance to a person who has to travel
along it every day than it is to an individual who has to travel along it
only once a year ;
but as it is more or less a nuisance to every one who has
occasion to use it, it is a public nuisance.
A private nuisance affords ground only for an action of
tort, in which the person aggrieved may claim damages or an
injunction or both. 1 He can also in certain cases himself
abate the nuisance without commencing legal proceedings
this cannot be done in the case of a nuisance that is exclusively
a public one. 2
A public nuisance, on the other hand, may give rise to
proceedings of three different kinds :
(i.) It may, as we have seen, be ground for an indictment
or criminal information. Any person may put the criminal
law in motion against an alleged offender, and may therefore
present an indictment against those whom he charges with
causing a nuisance. A criminal information, however, must
be sanctioned by, and brought in the name of, the Attorney-
General.
(ii.) It may be ground for a civil action, brought in the
name of the Attorney-General, in the Chancery Division,
which is also called an information. This may be instituted
by the Attorney- General of his own motion; but more
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1 See Nuisance, post, p. 499.
2 See post, pp. 966, 967.
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