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any portion of that district's debts; and thus the Hamlet will, without
contributing a fraction to its cost, be entirely drained through
a sewer upwards of three miles long, and constructed at an expense
of about £20,000, and that sum (of which no portion has yet been
paid), will be defrayed by Lewisham, Plumstead, and Camber well,
although the two latter parishes can never derive any appreciable
benefit from the existence of the sewer. It should, perhaps, be
added, that the Members of the Board who represent the Hamlet of
Penge, entirely dissent from the view taken by the other Members
on this question, and have protested against the suggestion for such
an alteration in the Act.
The other suggestion (No. 35) referred to was for including in
this District a portion of the Parish of Beckenham, which is a
narrow triangular slip of land running to a point near the north
end of the Crystal Palace, and lying between Lewisham on one side
and Penge on the other, having the river for its base. This portion
of the parish is thus entirely cut off from the remainder, and it
must, on ceasing to drain into the river, be drained into the
Ravensbourne and Sydenham Sewer, to the cost of which it should
be charged equally as Penge, but the section of the Act (209) providing
for the extension of the Metropolis, is not adapted to such a
case, and the only means of achieving so desirable an object is by a
special enactment for the purpose; but which the Metropolitan
Board have declined to insert in their projected Bill.