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207
Mortuary Keeper's Residence— Inconvenience has arisen
from the difficulty, hitherto insuperable, of finding lodgings for
the Mortuary Keeper within a reasonable distance of the
Mortuary. With a view to enable him to be always at hand when
wanted, the Works, Sanitary, and General Purposes Committee
negotiated a preliminary agreement with the Churchwardens, for
obtaining a site on the Churchyard, adjoining the Mortuary,
whereon to erect a lodge for his residence. A faculty would have
been necessary to give effect to this agreement and the Churchwardens
were willing to apply for one. Nothing, unfortunately,
came of the matter, your Vestry having declined to accede to the
terms of the Churchwardens, which involved a payment of money
by way of compensation for the land. The money was to have
been expended in putting the Churchyard in proper order. An
arrangement should be made even now with the Churchwardens,
to secure the site, if the matter is still open to negotiation. The
Churchyard, however, has been put in order by a charge upon the
Poor rate, which the parishioners pay, and the rate will be charged
with the cost of keeping the ground in decent condition in perpetuity.
Nothing, therefore, has been saved, but much has been
lost, by the failure of the negotiations with the Churchwardens.
The then Churchwardens approached the consideration of the
subject in a friendly spirit, and I would fain hope that their
successors may be found willing to co-operate with your Vestry
for the public advantage in this matter, especially as the improvement
of the Churchyard has been brought about at the public
cost, although not out of the rates controlled by your Vestiy.
CORONER'S COURT.
It is now very generally the practice to provide, in connection
with a mortuary, a building in which the Coroner can hold his
Court, thus rendering it unnecessary for the holder of that ancient
and dignified office to have to resort to public-houses for the
needful accommodation. But this step seemed unnecessary in
Kensington as there are rooms at the Vestry Hall, to which the