View report page

5
which this Board and various other District Boards and Vestries,
wharfingers, owners of docks and other properties affected by the
Bill were represented by counsel; G. P. Bidder, Esq., Q.C., being
the counsel retained on behalf of this Board.
The Committee sat on the 8th May, and from time to time held
as many as ten sittings, bestowing great care and attention to the
evidence laid before them, and to the arguments of counsel on either
side. Ultimately, on Friday, the 15th June instant, their Chairman,
M. E. Grant Duff, Esq., M.P., announced that the Committee
had come to the following resolution, viz.:—"That the most
equitable mode of charging and meeting expenses to be incurred
for the prevention of floods within the metropolitan district, would
be that the works should be carried into effect by the Metropolitan
Board of "Works, and the expenses paid out of a rate levied over
the whole metropolitan area." The Committee thereupon adjourned
until the following Wednesday, the 20th June, to enable the
Metropolitan Board, as the promoter of the Bill, to consider the
course it would adopt; and that Board, at a Special Meeting held
for the purpose, has resolved, by a majority of six, not to take any
further proceedings with the Bill during the present Session.
The Bill, therefore, falls to the ground for the present Session;
a result to be regretted in view of the danger of a recurrence of
flood tides, and the unprotected state of the district, but satisfactory
in having elicited the above expression of opinion from a
Parliamentary Committee, whose views will doubtless shape the
course of future legislation upon the subject.
The Metropolitan Board of "Works has further promoted a Bill
Toll Bridge
intituled "The Toll Bridges (River Thames) Bill," having for its
object the freeing from toll of the remaining toll bridges over the
River Thames; and this Board has again petitioned Parliament in
support of the measure, and has reason to believe that it will
be passed during the present Session.
On receipt of a circular-letter from the Managers of the Metro-
Hospitals f???
Infection
Disorders.
politan Asylum District, dated the 26th February last, forwarding
Extract from a Report of a Committee of the Managers relative to
hospital accommodation for small-pox patients, stating that a large