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9
Metropolitan and Regent Circus Railway Company.
A Bill to incorporate this Company was promoted in the present
Session of Parliament by the Metropolitan Railway Company for the
purpose of making an underground railway along the line of New
Street, sanctioned by Parliament in the last Session, from Regent
Circus, Piccadilly, to Old Street, St. Luke, as far as the Farringdon
Street Station, by way of Tichbourne Street, King Street, Dudley
Street, Hart Street, Theobald's Road, and Portpool Lane, Clerkenwell.
The Board resolved to petition against the Bill in order to obtain the
requisite locus standi for the insertion of clauses to protect its
interests in the several streets through which the line would be
made—against the powers inserted in the Bill to acquire the
vaults only of certain houses in some of such streets in contravention
of the Land Clauses Consolidation Acts—and to provide compensation
to tenants who would sustain the entire loss of their business.
Owing to some difficulties that arose, the promoters determined not to
proceed with the Bill this Session, and it was withdrawn.
Lascelles Place and Vinegar Yard.
On the requisition of the Guardians of the Poor of these Parishes,
under the Highway Acts, and the consents of the Earl of Harewood,
and Viscount Lascelles (the freeholders), and of the Joint Vestry of the
Parishes, the Board as the Surveyor of the highways, applied to and
obtained an Order of two Justices of the County of Middlesex for
shutting up the public way from Lascelles Place into and closing
Vinegar Yard; the object of the Guardians being, it was stated, to
enable them to erect on the site of Vinegar Yard part of a new
workhouse sanctioned by the Local Government Board. This Order
was in the month of February last confirmed by the Justices at the
Quarter Sessions, and has since been carried into effect.
Public Health Bill.
Late in the last Session of Parliament, the Government brought
in a Bill to consolidate and amend the law relating to the Public
Health in the Metropolis. The most important feature was an attempt
for the first time to give the Local Government Board powers of controlling,
governing, and superseding the Vestries and District Boards
of the Metropolis in sanitary matters, without any appeal. The Bill
by its title purported to be for the amendment of the public health,
but it contained no new feature save the sanitary arrangement of
"Dairies." It entirely failed to deal with the subjects most important
to health, as cleansing and scavengering of streets; the
removal of dust and ashes; the inspection and control of common
lodging houses; the water supply; and in particular to provide more
stringent measures for the prevention of the spread of contagious
diseases, and hospitals for such diseases; and it did not propose to improve
or extend the existing laws. The Bill was opposed, and numerous