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84
minutes. The work during this 3rd Commission seems to have been
left to the Surveyors, etc. (see my special report to the Board, " Sewer
or Drain " dated 8th June, 1895). The usual periodical batches for
house drainage appear not to have been presented. There are three
books with petitions and plans—vols. 3, 4, and 5—in the Tower
Hamlets Division for the 3rd Commission, containing 891 petitions
in all, 141 of which relate to Poplar.
The way to find a minute can be explained by taking as an example
the case of the 12 houses in Oriental Terrace. The petition was found
among those of the Tower Hamlets Division in the Engineer's department,
vol. 1, petition 162, with plan attached dated 21st October,
1848, and was presented in the days of the 1st Commission. The
next thing to do is to search in the Record Office through the various
papers presented at the meetings of the Court or General Purpose
Committee about the date of the petition.
Lists of petitions, speaking generally, will be found either in the
Court or General Purpose Committee, or Works Committee or
General Committee papers, about the date on the petition (except
during the 3rd Commission—October, 1849, to October, 1851), as reports
from the various Surveyors ; and when this entry has been found,
reference must be made to the minute of the Court or respective
Committee. The minute, it will be seen as a rule does not enter
into details, but merely sanctions either so many drains or such total
length of drains to be laid down, or return of the length of sewers and
the number of drains and flaps for which leave had been granted
together with contributions paid, according to batch of list of petitions
from the Surveyor or other official as presented in the papers, either
of the Court or respective Committee of that date.
It will be clearly seen that if any of the above items relating to
petitions are entered on the minutes either of the Court or Committee,
and the lists of localities of petitions are not presented in the papers
of the Court or Committee (as appears to have happened in the time