View report page

27
sum of £2,000 was borrowed of the same society, on the same terms,
on the 13th December. These and all other sums borrowed for
similar purposes will be defrayed out of the rates by a sinking fund
of not less than two per cent; thus throwing the cost of all such
works over a period not exceeding fifty years.
It will be seen on reference to the account of receipts and expenditure
that, in order to meet the current liabilities of the Board, it
has been necessary to draw largely on the amount borrowed for
sewerage purposes; this has arisen from circumstances beyond the
control of the Board. They found themselves on their constitution
surrounded with heavy liabilities, and only a trifling sum (under
£50), to meet them ; they were compelled to launch into a considerable
current expenditure, and their legitimate resources were outstanding
Highway Rates, difficult of collection, and precepts on the
Overseers, which could not be met for several months. As soon as
the Board could form any approximate estimate of their expenditure,
they issued (in March), precepts on the Overseers for the required
amounts to bo paid within three months. That upon Penge was
paid to the day, as was also a subsequent one made in September,
but those upon Lewisham in March were not fully paid until December,
and a considerable proportion of those made in September
are still outstanding; this delay has been partly the result of a reassessment
of the Parish which was made in 1856, and partly due
to other causes which have since been removed. The sums thus
diverted will, with the least possible delay, be refunded and applied
to the objects for which they were borrowed.*
In conclusion, the question of the admission of the press and
ratepayers to the meetings of the Board demands some notice in
this report, as having been the subject of repeated applications to
them, and the pretext for fomenting some amount of agitation in
Lewisham and Sydenham. At one of the first meetings of the
Board, several ratepayers presented themselves as an audience, but
the Board (with a lively recollection of the scenes that were wont
to be enacted at the meetings of the open vestry) decided that they
should withdraw. An application was made at the same meeting
for admission by a representative of the press. This also was refused
; for although the Board wished that every facility should be
given to place the public in possession of their corporate proceedings,
they were at the same time anxious, as far as possible, to relieve
individual members from the odium which necessarily attaches
to duties having so direct a personal bearing as those which they
are, at every meeting, called upon to perform.
* See Appendix II., at the end of the Medical Officer's Reports, for particulars of
the Preccpt issued in March, 1857, by the Metropolitan Board upon the District.