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94
Apart, however, from the question of cost, a greater objection
exists to the independent action of a private body, and
that is tbe possibility of conflict with the public body authorized
by law to take proceedings in such cases, leading to
waste of funds and energy, and other evils. In one of the
cases taken up by the "Vigilance Society, the Vestry had been
at some pains to enquire as to whether the owner of the house
was not knowingly letting the house for immoral purposes,
with a view to taking proceedings against him, but their
efforts were rendered nugatory by the Society proceeding
independently against one of the lodgers, before the enquiries
were completed.
Regarding this state of affairs as most unsatisfactorv, the
Vestry appointed a Committee to confer with a Committee of
the St. George's Vestry, who are also called upon to pay large
sums in the form of rewards to informers, as to the steps to
be taken to amend the law in this respect. The following is
an extract from the Report of the Committee, which was
adopted by the Vestry on the 19th December:—
Even if the payment of rewards were necessary, the amount at which they
were fixed more than a century ago, when informers were put to
personal trouble and inconvenience, besides risk of heavy costs, is
out of all proportion to the cost of the proceedings and the trouble
involved under the amending law. In the majority of cases,
moreover, the informers make but one attendance, if any, at a
Police Court, and rarely, if ever, enter the witness box. Your
Sub-Committee have reason to believe further that one of the
informers in three recent prosecutions in this Parish did not
possess the slightest personal knowledge of the character of the
houses he complained of, and that the information upon which the
warrants were granted was sworn to by a person employed by the
Vigilance Society, without the slightest assistance from the
informer. That an informer should be entitled to receive £30
under such circumstances seems to your Sub-Committee a violation
of the spirit of the law.