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full consideration of the Board, and the resolutions unanimously
arrived at by them in reference to it are given in the Appendix.
Copies of the resolutions were forwarded to the Metropolitan Board,
and all the Vestries and District Boards in the Metropolis.
The amendment of the Metropolis Local Management Act, which
has on all hands been admitted to be so urgently required, was
attempted by the Vestry of Hampstead, at whose suggestion delegates
were appointed by a number of Vestries and District Boards,
including this, but it was found that the views propounded were
too incongruous to admit of unity of action, and the Metropolitan
Board have undertaken to deal with the subject. The Committee
of the Board, to whom it was referred, invited suggestions from the
Metropolitan Vestries and District Boards for the amendment of
such of the provisions of the Act as relate to their powers and duties.
The report of the Committee, and the bill for the amendment of the
Act, which they have proposed, are now before the public, but
(possibly from the causes which terminated the proceedings of the
delegates), their care appears rather to have been devoted to the removal
of their own difficulties than those with which the Vestries
and District Boards are beset. A Committee of this Board devoted
a great deal of time and care to the consideration of the subject,
and an abstract of their suggestions is given in the Appendix. Of
those which are directed to minor details no notice is taken by the
Metropolitan Board, and the two suggestions of the greatest local
interest (Nos. 26 and 35), of which a few words of explanation will
be added, share the same fate; but the suggestions numbered 6,
11, 12, 17, and 34 have met with the approval of the Metropolitan
Board, and clauses are inserted in the bill, which, if made law, will
effect the object this Board had in view.
The suggestion No. 26 was made in the belief that no general
principle of apportionment of the debts of the Commissioners of
Sewers, throughout the vast extent of the Metropolis, will be found
to operate equitably in every instance, and although the Board
approve the principle that the dissolved "Separate Sewage Districts"
should each bear their own debts, they confidently point to the apportionment
upon this District, as an instance of the injustice arising
from the universal application of any principle, however equitable
it may be in the main.
The debt on the former Ravensbourne District has been almost
wholly incurred in the construction of the Ravensbourne and Sydenham
Main Sewer, which is available, and is proposed to be at once
used for the drainage of the Hamlet of Penge, but as Penge was
not within the Ravensbourne District, it cannot be charged with