View report page

135
of the intention of the Yestry, the Board proceeded with the Bill.
It was referred to a Select Committee, and Mr. Washington Lyon,
Mr. Alfred Stedman, Mr.W. B. Hurst, and Mr. Middlemass, attended
the Committee to give evidence in support of it.
I am glad to state that it has passed and has become law,
and I trust that before the next annual report is published the
Yestry and inhabitants in the locality of Canterbury Road will
have the full benefit of a handsome and convenient bridge.
ELECTION OF GUARDIANS.
For many years past it has appeared to the Yestry an
anomaly, that, while other representative bodies were elected with
due regard to the representation of their various divisions, either by
population, assessment, acreage, or other recognised principles
the Board of Guardians continued to be returned as representatives
of the Parish at large. Under this condition of things it was possible
f r one Ward to return nearly all the Members of the Board, while,
on the other hand, as was actually found to be the case, another Ward
might be entirely unrepresented. Under an Act of 39 and 40
Yic., cap. 61, power to divide a Parish into Wards for the
purposes of the Elections of Guardians was vested in the Local
Government Board, and the Yestry have more than one.)
memorialised the Board to exercise such powers, but without
success.
The subject was again revived during the past year, by
Mr. J. Bassett, and a motion which he submitted to the Vestry,
affirming the desirability of all future Election of Guardians of
the Poor of this Parish being made by the ratepayers of the six
Wards, severally, instead of by the whole of the ratepayers
conjointly, was adopted by the Vestry.
To give effect to the motion, in September, 1886, a
. Memorial was forwarded to the Bight Honourable the President
(Mr. Ritchie), and the Council of the Local Government Board,
setting forth the views of the Vestry on the subject.