and one-eighth the value of home-grown corn consumed on the land during a like period. This will apply in all cases where the away-going crop belongs to the tenant in possession. GILBERT MURRAY, Fellow. Replies to Query 720 (Vol. XI., p. 137). ROADSIDE DITCH-USER AS SEWER BY LOCAL AUTHORITY AND BY ADJOINING OWNER. A. 1. (A) More information is required before an answer of any value can be given to so wide a question. (B) If the occupier, he can fill up and take possession of the site of the ditch. The anthority must drain their own road. No one can be allowed to create a nuisance. Call upon them to pipe ditch. See Section 40 Public Health Act. user. 2. (A) See answer 1A. The local authority must have some rights of (B) Yes. (c) Not duty of local authority to empty cesspit-allowed to be constructed, I presume, as a temporary measure only. See Section 42 Public Health Act as to power of Local Government Board. C. H. LOWE, Fellow. B. There is not sufficient information to say definitely who is the owner of the ditch, but from the facts given I should consider the adjoining or abutting owner to be the owner of the ditch, and upon him or his tenant would fall the duty of cleansing the ditch, although the local authority has an easement for drainage into the said ditch. No owner has a right to so foul a ditch as to become a nuisance or a danger to health. Power to deal with ditches is given under the Public Health Act, 1875, Sections 48 & 91, but I am of opinion that the tenant of the adjoining house has no right to pump the overflow from his cesspool into the ditch. With reference to cleansing of cesspools, under Section 44 of the Public Health Act, 1875, power is given to the local authority to make by-laws imposing the duty of cleansing cesspools upon the occupier of any premises upon which such cesspool exists. Where the local authorities do the work themselves, or contract for the work, then the tenant could force the local authorities to keep the cesspool in such a condition as not to be a nuisance or injurious to health. Section 47 provides for a penalty in case any person in an urban district allows any cesspool to become a nuisance, and power is also given to the local authorities to abate the nuisance and recover the expenses in a summary manner. C. JONES, Fellow. Replies to Query 722 (Vol. XI., p. 138). WIDENING OF ROAD-OWNERSHIP OF FILLED-IN DITCH. A. Unless the private owner have retained some portion by paving, laying stones, or by some exercise of ownership, the Urban Council will be entitled to treat the strip as dedicated to highway use, and can construct their roadway up to the actual fence on either side. A. VERNON, Fellow. B. It was stated by Mr. Clavell Salter in the discussion which followed the reading of his recent Paper on "The Ownership of the Highway" that no general rule could safely be laid down in such cases as this (see Transactions vol. 33, pages 377 and 385). In this case it appears to me (unless there is clear evidence rebutting such a presumption) that the effect of filling up the ditch has been to dedicate to the use of the public the space it occupied, and the owner could have no claim to compensation in respect of it. I do not think the public can have acquired rights over any portion of the land which is covered by the hedge, and should advise the querist to make his claim in respect of the land, from the outside face of the hedge to the point marked A on the section. EDWARD W. REBBECK, Fellow. C. The answer depends, I think, upon what proprietary acts have been exercised over the area of the ditch by the owners of the grounds, and whether the ditch has been filled up during a sufficient number of years to indicate abandonment and dedication. I am disposed to the opinion that the ditch has been lost as an item of value, apart from the general principle which vests both it and the soil of the highway, as far as the centre line, in the adjoining owners; but, even if it had remained unfilled, the adjoining owner could not appropriate it so as to deprive the road authorities of their ordinary rights of drainage. G S. B. SAUNDERS, Fellow. Replies to Query 723 (Vol. XI., p. 138). RATING-BENEFICIAL OCCUPATION. A. In this case the owner is, in my judgment, the occupier and hypothetical tenant, and therefore the person to be rated, and although the profits are, per se, not rateable, they must be taken into consideration in estimating the annual value of the property, having regard to the purposes for which it is used. The rateable value should be the rent a tenant would give to use the land in the manner described. Tolls, when they really arise from the use of lands, are rateable (Reg. v. North and South Shields Ferry Company). JAMES F. FIELD, Fellow. B. In my opinion the overseers are clearly right. WALTER C. RYDE, Associate. Replies to Query 724 (Vol. XI., p. 139). LEASE-COMMISSION ON VALUATION OF FIXTURES. A. As I understand the statement of this question, the house agent found a tenant for the house who is to purchase the fixtures, although the price to be actually paid for the fixtures was not settled by the agent. If this is so, and if it were part of the agent's instructions that an incoming tenant must buy the fixtures, I think the agent is entitled to charge a commission both on the rent of the house and the price of the fixtures; but the commission in respect of the fixtures ought not to be charged on the amount of the original valuation of them, but on the price actually to be paid by the incoming tenant. I do not understand in what way it can be said that the fixtures were a "liability attached to the lease," so far, at any rate, as the lessee is concerned. The only respect in which this case differs from ordinary cases is that the incoming tenant will be entitled to sell the fixtures he bought when he took the lease, to the lessor at the end of the term, whereas in ordinary cases he would have bought them with the risk of not being able to sell them at the end of the term and having to remove them. HOWARD MARTIN, Fellow. B. The agent letting the house was, by implication, fully instructed as to disposal of fixtures, and having found an assignee who agreed to take an assignment of the lease and purchase the fixtures, is, in my opinion, entitled to claim commission on the sale on the amount obtained for them not on the original price. It is an established custom for a house agent to charge commission on any amount obtained for fixtures from a tenant introduced by him, whether he makes the valuation or not. SIDNEY R. CHESTERTON, Fellow. C. If the agreement for assignment provided for the assignee to purchase the tenant's fixtures at the time of the assignment, it would appear that the agent would be entitled to commission on the sale of the fixtures; but if the assignee simply took over the lease with its advantages and liabilities the agent would be no more entitled to commission on the valuation of fixtures than he would on the valuation of dilapidation at the end of the term. E. SWAIN, Fellow. Replies to Query 725 (Vol. XI., p. 139). LANDLORD AND TENANT-DILAPIDATIONS-LIABILITY FOR A. The lease is for 27 years only, and not, I presume, the original building lease. The bulged wall is the result, probably, of inherent defect in the original structure, for which the lessee of 27 years is in no way responsible. Unless, therefore, it can be proved that the bulged wall is the result of wilful or accidental damage on the part of the lessee, the claim cannot, in my opinion, be enforced. This opinion applies also to the sagged bressummer, and to the post out of upright. WM. WOODWARD, Fellow. B. Passing over the slip in the query that the covenant was to "surrender " instead of "yield up" in such repair, and as-uming in favour of the lessee hat the premises were old at the commencement of the tenancy, and, as against the lessee, that they were then in tenantable repair, the two claims specified cannot in my opinion be sustained, inasmuch as to No. 1 a covenant to repair does not imply a liability to renew or rebuild (Gutteridge v. Munyard, 1 M. & Rob. 334), nor as to No. 2 does it imply the liability to relay a new floor (Soward v. Leggatt, 7 C. & P. 613). J. H. REDMAN, Associate. Replies to Query 726 (Vol. XI., p. 140.) COLLECTION OF TITHE RENT-CHARGE. A. -are to be met 1. My experience is that "cranks "—to use a vulgarism-a with under various conditions. A wise agent will humour them a little, and, in the end, will have his way. The same course must be pursued as in regard to ordinary debts, but I should take proceedings without delay. A county court judge would know how to dispose of the matter. That personal application had not been made would be a bad defence. 2. A debtor must pay in full, but here also a little wise concession may be expedient. J. HENRY SABIN, Professional Associate. B. What constitutes a legal demand is a question that can only properly be dealt with by a lawyer. I believe that no personal demand for tithe rent-charge need be made on the premises by the collector before commencing proceedings to enforce payment. 66 For it was enacted by Section 81 of the Tithe Commutation Act," that "in case the said rent-charge shall at any time be in arrear and unpaid for the space of 21 days next after any half-yearly day of payment, it shall "be lawful for the person entitled to the same, after having given or left "10 days' notice in writing at the usual or last known residence of the "tenant in possession, to distrain upon the lands liable to the payment ;" and by Section 30 of 23 & 24 Vict., c. 93, that this notice might be given "by sending it by the post in a registered letter." This notice would seem to have been the only demand contemplated by the Tithe Acts prior to 1891, and in the Act passed in that year the provision as to notice is as follows: "When any tithe rent-charge is in arrear for not less than three "months the person entitled to such sum may apply to the County Court, "and the County Court, after such service on the owner of the lands as may be prescribed (i.e. service by the Court at least 10 days before the |