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34
As far as the Board was concerned the election had produced a fantastic
result. What had been a deadlock on the sewage question had been
turned into a complete impasse on all other matters. For two months the members,
with the value of the casting vote in mind, could not even arrive
at a decision as to the chairmanship: through a succession of sterile
meetings five of the eight members were at one time or another proposed
and seconder for the post but each time the voting ended in a tie. There
was nothing in the Public Health Act of 1848, from which the Board still
derived its constitution, to provide for a contingency of this nature and
an appeal to the home Secretary brought only "his instructions to the members
to repay their failure of duty by electing a chairman". The situation
was one which favoured Mr. Clarke and he fostered it; for he was
again busy with the promotion of a sewage farm bill under the title of
the Tottenham Local Board Bill, and he was playing for time. Had the
Vestry not forestalled him, he would probably have succeeded in presenting
the parish with a fait accompli; but on the strength of the resolution
which had empowered it to use the parish funds for the purpose the
Vestry applied for and secured an injunction from the Attorney General
"to restrain the Board or any Committee of the Board from applying moneys
out of rates for the Tottenham Local Board Bill". Mr Clarke quickly
recognised that he had suffered a last minute defeat At the next
meeting of the Board he abstained from voting and Dr. Hall was re-installed
in the Chair.
It was now the end of hay 1871. The internecine struggle was to
all intents and purposes over: without having contributed anything towards
the solution of the sewage question Tottenham's next unhappy
task was to assess the extent of the damage which had been done to the
parish during the past decade There was evidence of it in every direction
The parish's heritage of public harmony and civic enterprise and
its reputation as a prosperous, pleasant and healthy district had been
thrown away. Public confidence among the inhabitants was at its lowest
ebb. The decennial census had revealed that six hundred houses in the
parish were standing empty. People were beginning to talk of the high
local death rate, so that several of the famous residential schools in the
district (including Bruce Castle School) deemed it prudent to publish in
the press medical certificates showing the good health records of their
pupils. Even with a chairman, the Board remained paralysed and bankrupt:
in July, when its bank account should have been flush with rate
money, its credit balance was down to 14/11; such was its reputation that
even for short term loans it was having to pay 12% interest; and the
annual rate estimate, which should have been approved and signed in April*
had not been signed "because certain members refuse- to sign and the statutory
five signatures are not obtainable." The Herald summed up the situation
in a leader on "Poor Tottenham'. Where the Local Board has ruined
everything and everybody. Where the Exchequer is empty Where people
never stay a week longer than they can help Where the houses are empty-
Yet through all the gloom and despondency the inhabitants never