Odger's English Common Law

DEFENCES. 245
A railway company was authorised by Act of Parliament to make a
railway within five yards of an ancient public high road, and to run trains
on such railway. The Act did not require the railway company to screen
the line from the road. It was held that running trains on this railway
was not a public nuisance, although the locomotives frightened the horses
of persons who used the high road as a carriage-way. x
Lastly, a local authority is not liable for a nuisance which
it cannot prevent without bringing an action against a third
person. 2
It will be seen from the preceding pages that the definition
of a public nuisance is a very wide and elastic one ; and the
Court is unwilling to restrict the definition within any rigid
classification. We may, however, group the most frequent
instances together under three heads :
I. Nuisances to the health, safety or comfort of the
public.
—
II. Nuisances to public morals and decency.
III. Nuisances to public rights of passage.
I. Xittsancrx to the Health, Safety or Comfort of the Public.
As to nuisances under this head, it is unnecessary to do
more than cite a few instances, which will show the wide
extent and great variety of this class of crimes.
Thus any one, who carries on an offensive trade in such a manner as to
seriously annoy any considerable number of persons in the neighbourhood,
as by causing vibration, emitting sparks or unwholesome smells, or making
loud noises, is guilty of a public nuisance. " Every man has a natural right
to enjoy the air pure and free from noxious smells or vapours, and any one
who sends on his neighbour's land that which makes the air impure is
guilty of a nuisance." s
So, too, those who carry on trades in such a
manner that they are dangerous to the public, such as the manufacture of
fireworks or dynamite, are guilty of a public nuisance. 1
Any one, who carries a child suffering from small-pox through a public
street or drives a glandered horse to a public fair, commits a public
nuisance. 5 Various statutes have been passed with the same object—to
1 B. v. Pease (1832), 4 B. & Ad. 30.
* Att-Gen. v. (-/uarUiaus of Poor of Dorking (1882), 20 Ch. D. 595 ; but see Jones i,
Llanrwst U. D. C, [1911] 1 Ch. 393, 409.
3 Per Lopes, L. J., in Ohastey v. Ackland, [1895] 2 Ch. at p. 396.
* See the Explosives Act, 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 17); the Petroleum Acts, 1871—
1881 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 105 ; 42 & 43 Vdct. c. 47 ; 44 & 45 Vict. c. 67) ; and R.
v. Bennett (1858), 28 L. J. M. C. 27.
5 R. v. VantandUlo (1815), 4 M. & S. 73 ; R. v. Sanson (1852), Dearsl. 24.