in the
surfaces as enables them to exercise control. The urban council are
required from time to time to cause all such streets to be made up and
repaired as occasion may require, and they are empowered to raise,
lower or alter the soil of the street, and to place and keep in repair
fences and posts for the safety of foot-passengers. The other class of
streets consists of those which are not highways repairable by the
inhabitants at large. Under the Public Health Act 1875 such streets
may be dealt with in manner following:--If any such street or part
thereof is not sewered, levelled, paved, metalled, flagged,
channelled, made good or lighted to the satisfaction of the council,
the council may cause it to be made up at the expense of the owners of
premises fronting the street in proportion to their several frontages.
When all or any of the works aforesaid have been executed in the
street, and the council are of opinion that the street ought to become
a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large, they may by notice
to be fixed up in the street declare it to be a highway repairable by
the inhabitants at large, and the declaration will be effective
unless, within one month after the notice has been put up, the
majority of the owners in the street object thereto. An alternative
procedure has been provided by the Private Street Works Act, which may
be adopted by any urban council. One important point of difference is
that under the latter act the council may resolve that the expenses
shall be apportioned among the owners not merely according to
frontage, but according to the greater or less degree of benefit to
be derived by any premises from the works.

Where a house or building in a street is taken down to be rebuilt, the
urban district council may prescribe the line to which it is to be
rebuilt, paying compensation to the building owner for any damage
which he may sustain consequent upon the requirement. Save to this
extent, no power is given by the general law to a district council to
prescribe a building line. But under an act of 1888 it is provided
that it shall not be lawful in any urban district without the consent
of the urban authority to erect or bring forward any house or building
in any street or any part of such house or building beyond the front
main wall of the house or building on either side thereof in the same
street.

The contr