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Report Of A General Plan For The Promotion Of Public And Personal Health

Creator: Lemuel Shattuck (author)
Date: 1850
Publisher: Dutton and Wentworth, Boston
Source: Boston Public Library

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Sect. 28. Any town, which shall neglect to appoint a Board of Health annually, as required by this act, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred dollars for each neglect; and the Board of Health of any town which shall neglect to make and transmit the report required by the twenty-seventh section hereof, shall be liable to a like penalty.

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Sect. 29. All petitions and complaints concerning sanitary matters, shall be made and presented, in a written or printed form, to the Local Board of Health, or their authorized agent; and the object of all such petitions shall be immediately considered and acted upon; and it shall be the duty of every person who knows of the existence of any cause of disease, or of any matter which may properly come under the cognizance of the Board, to make it known.

98  

Sect. 30. Whenever any nuisance, filth, or cause of disease shall be found on private property, the Board of Health shall order the owner, or occupant thereof, to remove the same at his own expense, within twenty-four hours, or such other time as they shall deem reasonable, after notice served, as provided in the succeeding section; and if the owner or occupant shall neglect so to do, he shall forfeit a sum not exceeding twenty dollars, for every day during which he shall knowingly permit such nuisance or cause of disease to remain after the time prescribed, as aforesaid, for the removal thereof.

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Sect. 31. The order mentioned in the preceding section shall be communicated by a written notice, served personally upon the owner or occupant, or his or her authorized agent, by any person competent to serve a notice in a civil suit; or such notice may be left at the owner's, occupant's, or agent's last and usual place of abode, if the same be known, and is within the State; and if the owner's, or agent's residence is unknown, or without the State, the premises being unoccupied, then such notice may be served by posting up the same on the premises, or by publishing the same in such manner, and for such length of time, as the Local Board of Health shall deem expedient.

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Sect. 32. If the owner or occupant shall not comply with the order above mentioned, the Board of Health may cause the said nuisance, filth, or cause of disease, to be removed or destroyed, and all expenses incurred there, by shall be paid by the said owner or occupant, or by such other person as shall have caused or permitted the same, if such owner or occupant, or such other person shall have had actual notice from the Board of Health, of the existence of said nuisance, filth, or cause of disease.

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Sect. 33. All expenses incurred by any town or city in the removal of nuisances, or for the preservation of the public health, and which are recoverable of any private person or corporation, by virtue of any provisions of law, may be sued for and recovered in an action of debt, before any court having jurisdiction.

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Sect. 34. Any fines and forfeitures recovered under the twenty-eighth section of this act, shall enure to the use of the State; and all other fines and forfeitures incurred under the general laws, or the special laws applicable to any town or city, or the ordinances, by-laws, and regulations of any town, or of the Board of Health of any town, relating to health, shall enure to the use of such town; and all such fines may be recovered by complaint in the name of the treasurer, before any justice of the peace of the county, or police court of the town or city, in which the offence may have been committed.

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Sect. 35. Any person injured, either in his comfort or the enjoyment of his estate, by any nuisance, may have an action on the case, for the damage sustained thereby; in which action the defendant may plead the general issue and give any special matter in evidence.

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Sect. 36. The court of common pleas, or any one of the justices thereof, in term time or vacation, may, in all cases, either before or pending a prosecution, for a common nuisance, affecting the public health, issue an injunction to stay or prevent the same, until the matter shall be decided by a jury or otherwise; and may issue all such other writs and processes, and make all such orders and decrees according to the course of proceedings in chancery, as may be necessary or proper to enforce such injunction; and may dissolve the same when the court or any one of the said justices shall think it proper.

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Sect. 37. Persons may be complained of, and indicted by the grand jury having jurisdiction, for a common nuisance, injurious to the public health; and when any person shall be convicted on such indictment, the court may, in their discretion, order the nuisance to be removed, or destroyed, at the expense of the defendant, under the direction of the Board of Health of the town where the nuisance is found; and the form of the warrant to the sheriff, or other officer, may be varied accordingly.

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Sect. 38. The Local Boards of Health shall have all the authority, and may perform all the duties imposed by law upon justices of the peace, by "an act in addition to an act to provide for the confinement of idiots and insane persons," passed April sixth, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight.

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