It may be convenient to state that the expression
"street" is here used in a sense much wider than its ordinary meaning.
It is defined by the act to include any highway and any public bridge
(not being a county bridge), and any road, lane, footway, square,
court, alley or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not. For certain
purposes streets as thus defined are divided into two classes, viz.
those which are and those which are not highways repairable by the
inhabitants at large. But it has to be borne in mind that it is not
every highway that is repairable by the inhabitants at large. Before
the year 1836 as soon as a way was dedicated to public use and the
public had by user signified their acceptance of it, it became without
more notice repairable by the parish. Therefore every highway--whether
carriage-way, driftway, bridleway or footway--which can be shown to
have been in use before 1836, is presumably repairable by the
inhabitants at large, the only exceptions being such highways as are
repairable by private persons or corporate bodies _ratione clausurae_,
_ratione tenurae_, or by prescription. But in the year 1836, when the
Highway Act 1835 came into operation, the law was altered. It was
possible, just as formerly, to dedicate a way to the use of the
public, and it thereupon became a highway to all intents and purposes.
But mere dedication did not make the way repairable by the public.
That result was not to follow unless certain stringent requirements
were fulfilled. When it is shown, therefore, that a highway has been
dedicated after 1836, it is not repairable by the inhabitants at large
unless it can be shown that these provisions have been complied with,
or that it has been declared to be repairable under provisions of the
Public Health Acts presently to be mentioned. (There was also power
given to justices, by the Highway Act 1862, to declare a private road
or occupation road in a highway district to be a public highway
repairable by the parish; but this power does not appear to have been
acted upon to any extent.)

All streets being highways repairable by the inhabitants at large
within an urban district, are vested in and under the control of the
urban council. After much litigation it has now been established that
this provision does not give the council an absolute property in the
soil of the street, but merely such a qualified property