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1875 to the same effect, to which an answer was vouchsafed, dated
March 16th, 1875, fixing the 19th for an interview. A very large deputation
waited on the president on the day named, when Mr. Layton and
myself, in introducing the deputation, urged that the returns were
used solely by the different local authorities in the interests of the
public health—that forwarding them to the local authority involved
no extra labour or expense, and that the local registrars in forwarding
the returns to the Registrar General were only performing duties for
which they were paid out of the rates of the parish.
Mr. Sclater Booth promised to give the matter his consideration
and to communicate with the Vestry after he had consulted
with the Registrar General on the subject. No answer being
received by May 14th, 1875, another letter was addressed to the president,
and this again meeting with no response, another letter still,
dated June 16th, 1875, was written, urging the importance of some
speedy settlement of the question. On June 21st, 1875, a letter
was received to the effect that the Registrar General still considered
these returns should be retained by him, and that there would be no
difficulty in obtaining the returns from the registrars upon payment
according to the scale fixed by the "Registration Act" of 1874,
which Act it should be particularly noted does not apply to the
Metropolis at all.
All attempts, it will be seen, therefore, to obtain a restitution of
your rights seemed hopeless; and your Vestry therefore decided to
pay the local registrars for the information which it was incumbent
we should have, and from the absence of which, for so long a
period, I cannot but fear our sanitary work has suffered to a considerable
extent.
The above is nothing more than a plain, unvarnished statement
of the facts of the case. For myself, I consider that all statistics in
the hands of the Registrar General are public property, and intended
to do the greatest amount of good in the greatest possible number
of ways. You, as a body have paid for these returns (for the
local registrars are appointed by, and paid by the Guardians of the
parish), and you as a body have a right to them. They are not the
private papers of a member of a firm—they are not the debtor and
creditor accounts of a private business enterprise which demands