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the Metropolitan Building Acts, the Metropolis Gas Act, the
Sanitary Act, 1866, the Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings
Act, 1868, better known as Torrens' Act, and other statutes.
There has been a growing tendency for some years to include
in the local rates various sums for Metropolitan purposes,
over the expenditure of which local authorities do not
possess the slightest control. Thus, since the establishment
of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855, the Vestry have
at different times been required by Parliament to provide
funds for—(a) Main Drainage; (b) Fire Brigade; (c) Elementary
Education; (d) Thames Bridges—purchase, maintenance,
and rebuilding; (g) Artizans' Dwellings, and other
purposes. A statement of moneys raised with the parochial
rates for Metropolitan purposes is given on page 36.
BYE-LAWS.
The following bye-laws were made during the year, by
virtue of the 202nd section of the Metropolis Local Management
Act, 1855 :—
June 2.—No person shall be eligible for appointment as a salaried
officer of the Parish, who has been a Vestryman within the preceding six
months.
June 16.—That the Churchwardens and the representative Member of the
Metropolitan Board of Works, for the time being, be members of all standing
Committees, ex-ofiicio.
Sep. 20.—That all Special Meetings of the Vestry, called by requisition,
shall be summoned for the same hour of the day as ordinary Vestry Meetings
are held, unless urgent circumstances shall demand otherwise, in which case
such urgent circumstances must be set forth in the requisition calling the
meeting.
The first of these bye-laws was made in place of a somewhat
similar bye-law which had been rescinded on the 19th
May.