668 CHURCH RATES AND LOCAL CHARGES. AMOUNT of Highway Rates, Church Rates, Poor Relief, County Charges, Constables Charges, Militia, Litigation, and all other incidental local charges, for the Year 1827, in each County in England and Wales; also the annual value of Real Property Assessed in 1815 to the Property Tax, and the Population according to the last census. Bedford 95,383 Berks 145,289 Bucks 146,529 Cambridge Chester.... Cornwall Cumberland Derby Devon Dorset Durham Essex Gloucester Hereford 'Hertford Huntingdon Kent.. Lancaster Leicester Lincoln.... Middlesex.. Monmouth Norfolk..... Northampton Northumberland Nottingham Oxford Rutland.. Salop.... Somerset Southampton Stafford Suffolk Surrey Sussex Warwick Westmorland Wilts N. R. Wales Duke of Buckingham Earl of Stamford Earl of Lonsdale Duke of Devonshire... Duke of Wellington... RETURN of Lay and Clerical Magistrates in each County in England and Wales who have qualified, appointed by the Lord Chancellor. Names of the present Lord Lord Grantham.... Earl of Abingdon Earl of Hardwicke Earl of Fortescue Earl Digby...... ..... Marquis of Cleveland .... Duke of Beaufort, K.G... Earl of Mount Edgecumbe ..... .... Hereford Hertford Earl Somers COMMISSIONERS OF SEWERS. "Out of evil sometimes comes good, but do not evil that good may come."— FIELDING'S PROVERBS. WHILE a malignant distemper is either actually amongst us or impending, it seems a suitable moment for referring to a subject directly bearing on the general health of the community. Except in periodical calls for rates the public know and hear little of the Commissioners of Sewers. They are, however, a branch of the ancient institutions of the country, and the people have a right to be informed of the derivation of their powers, their duties, and the abuses in their administration. From the lectures of Challis at Gray's Inn, in 1662, public sewers appear to have been first vested in commissioners in the reign of Henry III.; and after several acts to extend their powers, became consolidated in the 23d of Henry VIII. c. 25; when authority was granted to certain individuals, in various districts of the kingdom, to construct sewers for drainage, and levy rates for the purpose. The authority of the Commissioners is almost absolute, and still continues with little abridgement. They can summon, examine, and even imprison; and it is even doubtful whether the superior courts of law can interfere. As regards the qualifications and appointment of the Commissioners, the statute of Henry VIII. directs that substantial persons, having a freehold qualification of £20 per annum, shall be nominated by the lord Chancellor, lord Treasurer, and two chief justices, for "making and repairing ditches, banks, gutters, gates, sewers, calcies, bridges, streams, trenches, mill-ponds, and locks." Each commission is to continue ten years; and six are to form a quorum. Commissioners acting without being duly qualified, to forfeit £40 each sitting; they may proceed either by inquisition or survey; each commissioner to be allowed 40s. a day while engaged in the duty of the commission, and the rates to be assessed in proportion to land, rents, profits, and fisheries. Besides this and other general acts, local acts have been obtained by several commissions, the provisions of which extend only to the particular jurisdiction for which they have been passed. In the district of the metropolis, north of the Thames, are four principal commissions. Monthly committees, clerks of the works, surveyors, inspectors, messengers, &c. are attached to each commission. Every one who receives a benefit or avoids a damage is liable to be assessed to the sewers' rate. The average expenditure under the Westminster commission is £24,000 per annum;* the Holborn and Finsbury, £10,000; the Tower Hamlets, * Parl. Paper, vol. v. No. 542, Sess. 1832. under £2,000; the city of London, £8,000: making a yearly expenditure of £44,000 for the maintenance of the sewers of one district of the kingdom. Having shortly noticed the origin and powers of Commissions of Sewers, we shall instance their defective administration. We shall call attention to the state of that portion of the environs of this great metropolis on the south side of the river. It may be thought by some, perhaps, so obscure and remote a corner of the realm is totally unworthy of legislative notice, but it ought to be borne in mind that it is the principal seat of productive industry in the capital, and that it comprises a dense population of half a million of persons, every one of whom is equally entitled with other of his majesty's lieges to the enjoyment of health and the blessings of life. If the inhabitants of this portion of the suburbs be peculiarly subject to the cholera or other malignant disease, it cannot be matter of astonishment. They are compelled to drink the most deleterious beverage, and the sewers, ditches, and channels for carrying off the foul and redundant water are in a state of disgraceful neglect. In all that thickly-peopled area, of at least sixteen square miles, embracing the entire parishes of Rotherhithe, Bermondsey, Horseley Down, Walworth, Newington-Butts, and a considerable portion of Lambeth, extending from Deptford and the Kent Road to the New Camberwell Road, and the roads in the vicinity of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, the channels and ditches for carrying off the water remain in their natural state, overflowing with filth and impurity. If, for want of descent, it might not be easy to drain them, they might at least be widened, cleansed, and covered over. If, by economy in the expenditure of the existing assessment, it could not be made adequate to the undertaking, at such a moment of apprehension of infectious disease, and for such a salutary end, the inhabitants would hardly complain of an additional rate for the purpose; in fact they would save it in the reduction of poor-rate, caused by the employment created for men who now burden the parish for want of work. As it is, the nuisance of which we complain is personally dangerous to the passenger, offensive to the eye, and most injurious to the constitution. It is gratifying to think the Surrey parishes are about obtaining representatives in parliament, were it only for the sake of local improvements. At first we thought of calling the attention of Mr. Warburton to the power and duties of commissioners of sewers, but this gentleman has his hands full with the Anatomy Bill, and moreover is in some measure a particeps criminis, having been recently presented for a nuisance on his own lands, by the Surrey grand jury. However, we trust some honourable Member will take up the subject. A parliamentary committee sat on the state of the public sewers in 1823, but it had an indifferent chairman in the late Mr. Peter Moore-made no report, and nothing came of its inquiries. The increase in population has been rapid and nearly at an uniform rate per cent. for the last thirty years, notwithstanding the increase or diminution of the Army, Navy, &c. The population of Ireland amounted in 1831 to 7,734,365, making the aggregate population of the three kingdoms 24,271,763. With such an augmented number of people, cribbed in by corn laws, anti-emigration prejudices, and monopolies, can it be matter of surprise that capital is redundant-bread dear and labour cheap? Is it possible, while society is progressively increasing in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, public institutions can be stationary? Is it possible that an Aristocracy, daily becoming more disproportionate in every element of power to the mass of the community, can maintain a monopoly of political authority? Either they must speedily repair the few decayed pillars by which the State is supported within, or be crushed from the superincumbent pressure without! POSTSCRIPT. Two or three changes, occasioned by deaths and removals, have occurred while the work has been printing, but they are of too great publicity to need particularizing. We may also remark that the observations at pages 376 and 502 were printed prior to the publication of the Navy Estimates. The energy with which sir J. Graham has proceeded to new-model the department over which he presides will leave, we apprehend, little to desire in that branch of the public service. After the explanations of the Duke of Wellington (House of Lords, March 16th) we suppose we must acquit his Grace of the design imputed to him, p. 584, and conclude that he had no intention of joining the continental despots in a crusade against the liberties of France and Belgium.-May not this be an afterthought of the ex-Premier, like his famous explanation on the subject of Parliamentary Reform? Page 498, line 14, for custos read custodes; page 592, line 15, for divisions read division; page 597, line 27, for sixteenth read seventeenth century. In the printed Reform Bill, as amended in committee by the House of Commons, Wallingford forms one of the semi-disfranchised boroughs, and ought to have been inserted in No. IV. instead of No. V. of our Tables, page 614. In No. VII. page 615, Chatham should be inserted and Swansea omitted. On bringing up the Report, Merthyr Tydvil was included in the number of enfranchised boroughs. |