The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-10-23 00:00:00

THE DORSET COUNTY EXPRESS AND AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1866,

Eines, R. J. Marshalsea, J. HoHingham, G. Haab,
8. Hordle, and R. Rolla. The Queen,. prochun.taoa
against vies and immorality was read by the Town
Clerk, whereupon 0. W. Ferrer, E.g.. delivered
the charge to the grand jury. The learned RWORDIA
said :

Gentlemen of the Grend Jury—l have greet plea-
sure in meeting you again at this oar annual
so.ions, and I congratulate you, as well as myself,
that we have not had to cone here amid such
storms as we had on Thursday at this time, alchouge,
if such had been the us.., I hope I should leave been
punctual inpelf, yet, I few, I could then have hardly
hoped to have had the pleasure of seeing so good an
attendance, and attendance FO ponctually given a. on this
ocesoi..n. We meet in this manner annually, and, as
„e how, el ...err thought, and still continue to
think, that it in ueful on to rin, and it has been more
strongly brought to my mind on the present occasion,
hy having eau a very short time ago, I will not say an
attack, but • letter, in one of the county papers, ably
written, but not altogether oomplitnentary to the
corporete in.rnagement of the town of Wareham. The
letter, to my mind, boars marlin of a foreign bond--I do
not imagine it was written by any resident in Wareham,
because I think it shows ewaiderable ignorance of the i
power* and circumstances under which the Corporation ,
of Wareham exists. This Corporation is a very well
constituted hods% and doubtless would, if it had means,
do very great things, brit it cannot do much, simply
buses° it has not got the money wherewith
to do it. But the best thing when one
has not got nionry to do • great deal, is to do what
one min well, and I have never sees anything to lead me
to suppose that the Corporation does not do what it
can well; nod, amongst other thing. which it doe, well,
Is to collect together to meet the Corpwation, and ma
(ea its mouth-piece), an entirely respectable and intel-
ligent • body of the tmdumeu of Wareham as have
Invariably done us the honour to meet us at our annual
unions. As I have before stated, the use of which you
can he oti this ornaeion is of • moral character. The
leeislatore has substituted for the action of corporate
°Moen in former days a much more effective and im-
mediately noting p rner than the Corporation can bring
to bear, in the ohms° of the luspeotors of Nuisances acting
under the local authorities. That haa been found to be
an exceedingly awful authority in other town., and I am
happy to think that the Inspectors appointed by the
local authority in this plum have very effectively and
well (according to my observation) done their duty.
They and you mast observe that these duties require
continuous action. It is of no use lookinz round once
a year. and raying this and that place is badly kept;
what is wanted is the constant individual attention, not
, only of the Inepectors, but of all you who are the first
persons to suffer from neglect of the performance of
those duties. We know perfectly well, though one may be
as clean as possible, if his next-door neighbour he
dirty, fever and other dim-ales pay very small reseed
to persona in that position, and are quite u ready
to attack a pure plane if its neighbour be dirty,
as ix any other coward. A coward always
assaills the weak, and if we have • weak plus
morally or physically, it will be always attacked. The
weak place of • badly-drained town is that where caution
is neglected, and there is an old classical proverb which
tells on we do very well to look out when our next
ceighbour's house is on are. I have not had an
opportunity of attending any of the public meet-
ings held in this town on a subject respecting
which I sometime* hear that you have only to
mention the word "Sanitary" or " Parliamentary"
to • Wareham man, and it acts like a red
rag to • bull—be is fil'ed with clans at ones. I have
had no opportunity of attending such meetings, or.
perhaps, I should be as frightened as anybody else, if the
red rag were applied to on. But it has occurred toes.,
considering the objections I have read as made at those
nieetinr, that it may be a useful thing if I justßictfon
in the event of recourse being had to • Local of
Health what the process of creating it would be, and
what your power over it would be when it WM estab-
lished. Ido not think it Is within my province here to
advise in dist matter. If I wished to suggest to you as
• friend the adoption clan, such course, I would attend
a meeting, and do so when I weld be answered, but now
it would be utterly unwise of me to do so when counter
advice could not be given. I now simply wish to tell
you what can be done in the matter. The Lout
, Government Act may be adopted in pious which
have • known or defined boundary. If you were starting
the matter here,l do not think, as a la wyer.you would be
able to say Wareham is a place with • defined boundary,
besanae the borough cuisine several parallel... You
would come under another notion, which defines what ,
Is to be done by places not Ir-ving • known or defined
boundary. There would have to be • petition signed by
one-tenth of the ratepayers presented to the Secretary
of State, desiring him to settle the boundary, and,
thereupon, he would make inquiry into the matter, after
, 14 days' notice had been given to him, and would either
dismiss the petition or make an order defining what the
boundaries of the place should be. If each an order
were made, the place, of which the boundaries had
hitherto been unknown, would come into the position
of a place such u 1 first mentioned. Having got that
far you would sail in the ordinary channel. A meeting
would be convened by the summoning officer— who is
easily to be found—on the requiaition of twenty rate.
payers or owners within the place. To that meeting a
resolution would be proposed for the adoption of the
Act, and if it were unanimously carried further pro-
ceedings would be taken. But if the meeting were not
unanimous a poll would be demanded, and votes taken. ,
Every ratepayer rated at leas than LSO would have one
vote, and soon, mounting up by steps of £5O to £250,
and a ratepayer at £250 would have six votes, on the
sante scale, I think, as In electing members of Boards of
Guardians, But beyond six no preponderance is
given, however much one's rating may eroeed nra
Supposing the poll to be in favour of adopting the AM,
there is • liberty of appeal against it, which meet be
made by one-twentieth of the owners and ratepayers in
number, or by owners acd ratepayers in rupect of
one-twentieth of the rateable property. Upon such
appeal inquiry would be made by the Secretary of State,
and it would .he in his power to direst the adoption of
the Act or to refuse it. If the Act be adopted it is '
notified in the London Gazette and so on. The next
step is to examine into the constitution of the Govern•
went whioh is to be put in fora., in consequence of the
adoption of the Act. All that is required is that there
shall be a Loral Board of Health, and the Inhabitants
have to determine the number of elective members of
which it shall consist, the ratepayers and owners in this
matter noting according to the scale I have previously
stated. The only thine further to tell you Is that the
qualification requisite to be eligible as a member If the
Baud into possess: MOO in property, or property of the
annual rateable value of CIS. Such are the measures
to be taken for adopting the Local Government Act if
you choose to do it, but I altogether disclaim offering
any advice as to the propriety of your adopting it or
, not, simply because, whatever my opinion may be (I do
I not know that any of you have had an opportunity of
ascertaining it in any way) it would be altogether im-
proper for nie sitting on this bench, to recommend such
• step, became; nobody would have an opportunity of
questioning the wisdom of it. I merely tell you
the cum to be taken if you should wirh to adopt the
Act. Suppceing it to be adopted, I now proceed to tell
you the powers of the Load Board generally. The
statutory powers entrusted to the Board would be the
management of eawers and drains in the district, house
drainage, cleansing and covering drains, abating
nuisances, regulating lodging-houses, and the manage-
ment of the streets and highways. They would also
have the power of regulating and providing a supply of
water In the plat& If the Ines.' chose, it could
further have the power of adopting certain Acta, which
are found very beneficial, such as the Towns Police
Clauses Act, *Mph unquestionably would have the ad-
vantege (ma those before said) of obviating the anomaly
by which, amording to strict legal right, the magistrates
of the borough or county have no power to stop annoy-
ance in the way of bad language, crowding, profanity,
and obscenity at the preeent time. The Towns Police
Clauses Act would give the Local Board power to inter-
fere in these matters. They weld also adopt the
Towns Improvement Act if they wished. Now when I
say that I do not take upon myself to advise 'mu from
this Bench to take any step, towards adopting those
sok& I do feel myself at liberty to lay in the negative
that if, I were a resident in Wareham, and if the adop-
tion of snob • scheme would involve the expense it has
done in some pieces, I moat unquestionably would
have nothing to do with it. I think I shall not be
deputing from my rule of not giving any advice
no this Babied, if I say that I can conceive of no
pueblo reason why • body so elected, and with such a
qualifieation,should not be kept in order by the residents
of the town themselves; and it dose seem to me that it
must be the fault of the electorn if they allow any
extravagance or excessive expenditure to take place.
Asurther thing—so far as I am
personally. concerned, I
would not consent to the appointment of any Board at
this time of day which proposed to deluge me or my n
town with a water system of drainage. The
system bag been a sort of bobby of mine, and I have
mentioned it to you for years past, bat (I assume
you read the papers) I think you will agree with me
that the subject of the earth system has now not only
become known in Wareham, and the Isle of Purbeck,
but, thanks to distinguished =mat and newspaper
"'wag/, not only here but in Prance, Belgium,
Amine* and tuna. So that! must say I should be ex-
ceedingly sorry to see Warehun running into any hasty
adoption of what I cannot but conceive to be a gigantic
mistake, when you have • rare abnPle and effective
system at your own doors. Perhaps there is no town
In Eegland so well supplied with gardens, and having such
great facilities for the adoption of the earth system, an
Wareham, and I should imagine that • Local Board of
Health would at once put an end to nuisance, caused
by the partial water drainage, and through which I am
told by medical authority, Wareham has been made
very much worm than it was before any such @Totem of
drainage was adopted. lam told that is the case, and
I think I raa find medical authority in this town to bear
me oat in the assertion. How defensible the earth
system is, seems torn, to be indicated by the objections
to it I hare seen in the newspapers in letters sub-
scribed by great names, and it is sad to see that many of
the writers know nothing at all about the addicts
There is one lather written by • Man who ought to
know about it, and he says the earth system is a fillers
and "ataM_Pod up," bemuse if London were to ado pt it the
w hole of MID acres of earth gig feet derepwould be required.
Of all the remarkable arguments pet forth against the
earth system, that seems to me the most extraordinary:
because, forsooth, in the largest assembly of waaktpd
ever known, men cannot see their way to adopting the
earth system at the first moment. it is not suitable for
smaller places I 'f that is the stroagest argument to be
brought against the earth system, I think it proves
evernthing Ia Its favour. Some of yOll who have
triad it know perfectly well that if 400 acres of meth
were required for London, t h st run tity rn est bedi witted by
six or *even to arcertein the real amount necessary,
humus, as you know, one great advantage of the earth
system is that so great is the power of Nature to absorb
and deodorise what Is evil, that the same material can
be used six, seven, or eight times. *my of you know
what the earth system is, and how utterly futile is such
an objection to it. I have for maoy years considered that
the earth system is by far the most important sanitary
question raised In the present generation, and I do not
believe we know the amount of comfort which it is cal-
oulaked to confer even in tennis. and most unquestionably
Is ountry cottages and public placcu The other day I
was at the comity gaol at Dereheiner, where for' 18
months past the earth gate= has freesia operation with
meet complete sum& The Governor (Mr. J. V. D.
Lawrence), who showed see the system, spoke in the
highest possible terms of the comfort and convenience it
afforded, and he took me into the shed which is the cam