The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-29 00:00:00

COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL,

Yesterday a special meeting of the Common Council was
convened at Guildhall, the Lord Mayor in the chair, to con-
sider a motion of which Mr, Medwin had given notice, and
the object of which was to alter the whole constitution of
the Commission of Sewers of the City of London. The
Court of Sewers is an offshoot of the corporation, and a very
ancient body. It has existed in its present form from the
reign of Charles 11. downwards, a period of more than 180
years, and its mode of procedure is governed and its powers
defined by special Acts of Parliament. It consists of 85
members, including the Aldermen, the Deputy, and one
Common Councilman of each ward, the Recorder and Com-
mon-Sergeant for the time being, and having the Lord
Mayor at its head. The name of the Commission scarcely
defines its functions. It is practically a local Board of Works,
with extensive powers of rating the citizens, of making and
enforcing sanitary laws, of dealing with large sums of
money, of regulating street architecture and carrying out
of public improvements, all which it exercises under condi-
tions prescribed by the Legislature. To it is confided the
whole and sole management of the sewers, which, indeed, is
its primary function. Parliament has also from time to time
devolved upon the Commissioners the duty of carrying out
within the city General Acts passed to promote the public
health, and which duty is entrusted to municipal bodies
and boards of health in other parts of the country. The
Commissioners have the reputation of being a very useful
body of public men, doing a great deal of good in the in-
terest of the citizens at large, especially in promoting the
public health. This being the relation in which they
stand to the corporation and to the citizens, Mr. Medwin
moved a resolution yesterday, the object of which was in
effect to give every member of the Common Council, about
232 in number, a right to act on the Commission of
Sewers, instead of the 80 and odd members of the corpora-
tion of whom it is at present composed. He grounded this
motion chiefly on the inconvenience, of which he gave in-
stances, of there being two bodies in the corporation acting
independently of each other and often at variance. He cited
in particular the case of the proposed new street from Black-
friars-bridge to the Mansion-house, the construction of
which he said had been entrusted to the Metropolitan
Board of Works over the heads of the corporation, to whom
the making of it belonged of right. Had the two bodies
been coincident in numbers and in interest, the Corporation
of London, he submitted, would have been spared the in-
dignity implied in entrusting the construction of the new
street to a foreign body. He also mentioned the case of the
railway viaduct proposed to be constructed across Ludgate-
hill as another unfortunate result of divided authority. The
Court of Sewers, he said, even went so far at last as to give
their sanction to a design for that monstrous thing, thus
taking the matter wholly out of the hands of the Common
Council. He also referred to an occasion when, on a com-
mittee of the Common Council going before the Commission
as a deputation, they were told that it was an impertinence
for them to do so and not within the scope of their reference
—besides, that the Commission was a body independent of
the corporation. The Commission, it was true, published
their accounts from time to time, but they never reported
to the Common Council. Whether the question was one of
imposing a shilling or an eighteenpenny consolidated rate
upon the citizens, or of expending £lO,OOO or £20,000, it
was all the same; the Common Council had nothing to do
with the mater. They had delegated their authority to others
and had shirked the responsibility which properly belonged
to them. No Parliamentary committee stood in so anoma-
lous a position as did the Commission of Sewers in relation
to the corporation, of which it was the offshoot. The Com-
mission had the control of large funds, which were con-
stantly increasing, but its numbers remained stationary.
The total sum administered by them last year was £152,000,
as compared with £27,000 in 1813, and £116,000 of which
was raised by the consolidated rate, which they had the
power of imposing on the citizens, and which had been
doubled in ten years. Mr. Webster seconded the motion,
Mr. Norris, M.P., moved an amendment to the effect that $
was inexpedient to alter the constitution of the Commission
in the manner proposed, because it had existed in its present
form from the reign of Charles 11., when the power to ap-
point the Commission wee first given to the Common Coun-
cil down to the present day, a period of more than 180 years,
and because, during that long interval, great additional
powers had been from time to time given to the Commis-
sioners by Parliament, and very extensive works had, espe-
cially of late years, been intrusted to and executed by them,
while no complaint had ever been made of them either by the
Legislature, Government, or Common Council ; on the con-
trary, the value of their works had been repeatedly acknow-
edged and approved. This amendment was proposed by Mr

Norris in a very able speech, and seconded by Mr. Chaplin.
A long debate followed, in which Deputy de Jersey took a
conspicuous part in vindicating the Commission of Sewers,
of which he is chairman, but it had no interest to the gene-
ral public, in comparison to the parties immediately con-
cerned, to justify a detailed report. At length, on a division,
the amendment of Mr. Norris was affirmed by a majority of
three, in a court of 141 members. It then became the origi-
nal motion, and was put in that shape by the Recorder to
the meeting, when, on a division, 03 members voted for and
63 against it, the result being received with laughter, The
Lord Mayor declined to exercise his right of giving a cast-
ing vote, and the Court broke up with great merriment, the
belligerents, after five weary hours of talk, being exactly in
the position in which they began.