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from constant handling, and a record kept in case of their unhappy
destruction by fire.
I also stated that should the Committee agree to the suggestions,
perhaps the local authorities generally might do likewise, so that there
would be afforded greater facilities and ease for finding petitions,
plans, and minutes of the Metropolitan Commissioners.
The Committee recommended that an application be made to the
Council to provide a proper index, as suggested.
I beg to report that shortly after this meeting, together with some
of the officials of your Board, I have had occasion to search through
the petitions. I have also examined various documents in the Record
Office of the Council. After conferring with your Clerk upon the
information I had gathered, it was deemed advisable that I should
make a special report to the Board, so that it might be circulated
among the various Metropolitan Local Authorities, with a view to
their co-operation for bringing about an amendment of the Law
relating to Sewer or Drain, so that local authorities may not have to
bear the burden and expense of keeping in order or re-constructing
private sewers and combined drains between the years 1848 and
1856.
It appears that the Metropolis was divided into eight divisions or
districts, viz., Westminster, City, Holborn and Finsbury, St. Katharine,
Tower Hamlets, Poplar and Blackwall, Surrey and Kent, and
Greenwich.
The Tower Hamlets Division petitions and plans are bound in
fourteen volumes, some of which are of great thickness; and the
first four volumes are sub-labelled " Poplar District, etc.," but the
petitions are not confined to that district. Plans which are large—
such as those of estates—are not always bound with the petitions,
but are kept in another room. There are some thousands of petitions
in the fourteen volumes, and only the last four volumes have any kind