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52
By availing ourselves of access to the poor rate accounts
we are enabled to ascertain that the total receipts for the year
amounted to £217,878, and the total disbursements to £212,841,
of which it appears that only £50,119 is expended by the
Vestry upon local purposes.
A similar statement to that issued in recent years relating
to the rates given in charge but not recovered, has been again
approved by us as giving a valuable and, as we think, a highly
creditable view of the rate collectors' work. From this statement,
which we have appended hereto,* it will be seen that the
total amount of the rates given in collection was £191,148 2s.
4¾d., and that £179,336 8s. 10½d. of that sum was actually
received. Of the £10,542 5s. 6¼d. which was not recovered no
less than £7,066 18s. 8sd. was due to properties being empty.
The audit has this year been marked by a refreshing—we
had almost said an amusing—novelty in the attendance of the
School Board for London by their solicitor, as "a ratepayer,"
to object to the allowance of certain expenses incurred by the
Vestry in the autumn of last year, in view of the then approaching
election. The skilful arguments of the solicitor, and
his warning of the probable application for a writ of certiorari
alike fail to alter the views communicated to the School Board
in December last in reply to their peremptory and dictatorial
letter; but as we furnished the Vestry with a copy of the
correspondence at the time, and as we are now required to
state in the books our reasons for allowing such expenses, we
need not trouble the Vestry further here with the subject, than
to state that the amount in question is £33 10s., of which £25
was for 6,000 stamps, £7 0s. 6d. for printing and envelopes, and
£1 9s. 6d. for addressing the latter.
We feel it our duty to add, however, that conceiving ourselves
to be entrusted by the ratepayers with the impartial
oversight in their interests of the Vestry's expenditure—and the
* This return is given at pages 70 and 71