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condition the Vestry was urged by the inhabitants to take to
it as a parish road. Being a "new street" this could only be
done by paving it, under the 105th Section of the Metropolis
Management Act, 1855, which directs that the charge of paving
shall be borne by the owners of property abutting on each side of
the road. This Vestry had no legal power to charge
the owners in another parish with their proportion of the
expenses of paving the street. The case of the Vestry of Mile
End v. Guardians of Whitechapel Union (L. R.), deciding that
an apportionment on one side of a road was bad, created a great
difficulty in paving Canterbury road. It is evident that the
wording of the 105th section does not contemplate the case of
a "new street" which is in two parishes. To meet this difficulty
Mr. Besley was consulted, and he advised that this Vestry and
the Greenwich Board should simultaneously pass resolutions,
under the 105th Section, to pave the road, and apportion
and charge the owners of property on both sides with the
expense, intending that the respective Boards should only seek
to recover the paving expenses from the owners in its
own parish—indeed, they could have no legal power to
recover an assessment in any other parish than their own.
This mode it was considered would remove the difficulty, as
both sides of the street would be assessed, and both this Vestry
and Greenwich Board would get their expenses from their
respective owners.
This Vestry then proceeded to obtain tenders and made a
contract for paving the road, and the Greenwich Board agreed
to pay their proportion of the expenses. Mr. Spencer, Clerk to
the Greenwich Board, wrote to me that an owner refused to
pay his proportion of the paving expenses; that a Summons
had been taken out for such expenses ; and, ultimately, that the
Magistrate (the late Mr. Balguy) had dismissed the summons
on the ground that the apportionment was void because it
included a part of a street which was not within the district of