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The Vestry, on August 1st, decided to decline acceding to the
suggestion of the Registrar General, feeling that they were fairly
entitled to the returns for which virtually they had already paid,
their use involving no extra labour to the District Registrars.
On October 9th, 1874, a letter was addressed to me as Medical
Officer by the Registrar General, informing me that he declined after
the 21st inst. sending me the Weekly Returns, and that, therefore, I
must make arrangements for the necessary information with the
district registrars, the Local Authority paying for any extra trouble
thus imposed upon them.
On October 21st the Sanitary Committee communicated with
the Guardians asking what control they had over the registrars
who were appointed and paid by them, pointing out that the 28th
section of "The Births and Deaths Registration Act" of 1874
merely referred to the relation of the registrars to those sanitary
authorities created by the "Public Health Act" of 1872. To this
letter the clerk of the Guardians replied (October 22nd) that the
Guardians considered they had no control in the matter, but much
regretted the action taken by the Registrar General.
On November 13th your Vestry asked for an interview with the
president of the Local Government Board on the question, and on the
24th received a reply stating that the Board had no control over the
Registrar General, and urging that, inasmuch as the local registrars
were paid in the country for these returns, they might just as well be
paid in London. But more extraordinary still, although the Registrar
General offered in his letter of June 19th to continue sending the
returns he himself received, provided the Local Authority agreed to
pay for them, he now alleged that the reason he refused to furnish
the returns to the Local Authority made to him by the registrars, was
that he needed the returns as office documents. This letter being so
pre-eminently unsatisfactory, the Vestry, on December 23rd, urged
once more for an interview with the president of the Local Government
Board, in company with representatives from St. George's,
Hanover Square, Camberwell, Clerkenwell, St. George's in the East,
Mile End Old Town, and St. Saviour's, Southwark. No answer being
sent to this communication, another letter was sent on March 13th,