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public body, to meet on Easter Tuesday and discharge their
public business. Very many momentous changes have taken
place since then—most important and interesting changes in
our constitution. It is now thirty-three years since, by Sir
Benjamin Hall's Act of 1855, the Board of Works was constituted;
and during those thirty-three years they have
discharged a great many ever-increasing, important, and
responsible duties. They have spent four hundred and fortyfive
thousand pounds in watering, lighting, paving, sanitation,
and in various street improvements; and I think we should be
ungrateful if we did not recognise the fact that their duties
have been those of an ever-growing and responsible character,
and that they have discharged the duties laid upon them in a
highly satisfactory, laborious, and zealous manner. Henceforth,
by the Act of last session, the duties will devolve on the Vestry
itself, the Board of Works having ceased to exist on Saturday
last. The Act of last session was an endeavour to consolidate
and simplify our local government. Henceforth the Vestry
will be individually and directly responsible to the parishioners
by whom the members are elected. It will no longer be a body
to collect funds for the disbursement of the smaller body, but
it will be immediately responsible for the manner in which the
money is applied from the rates which the Vestry itself collects.
I therefore take the opportunity of marking this change by
recognising the labours of the Board of Works, and by expressing
an earnest desire, as I am sure I shall do, in the common
name of you all—in the hope and prayer of you all—that the
principle of local self-government—a principle of which Englishmen
may be justly proud—may by no means be allowed to
suffer in our hands, and that we may discharge our duties with
dignity and honour, and with harmony, and public spirit, and
self-respect.
constitution of the vestry.
Upon the inauguration of the new system "the Vestry"
comprised those who had been, prior to that day, the
Members of the " United Vestries."
Pursuant to the 7th section of the Metropolis Local
Management Act, the 23rd day of May, 1888, was appointed
for the election of Vestrymen and Auditors. On
this day 1G Members of the St. Margaret's Parish and 16
Members of the St. John's Parish vacated, by the effluxion
of time, their seats upon the Vestry. The result of the