The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-22 00:00:00

MARYLEBONE VESTRY.

THE REGENT'S CANAL RAILWAY.
Mr. G. DANIELL, as chairman of the committee ap-
pointed to watch the progress of the Regent's Canal Rail
way, brought up the following further petition to Parlia-
ment upon that subject :
" Sheweth,—That a Bill is in progress in your
Honourable House to enable the company of proprietors
of the Regent's Canal to make a railway from Padding.
ton to Limehouse, with a branch therefrom, and to amend
the Act relating to the Regent's Canal.
"That the said Regent's Canal passes through a con-
siderable portion of the said parish of Marylebone.
That the said canal is assessed to the poor and other
parochial rates of the said parish only as so much land
covered with water, whereas your petitioners humbly
submit the said land so covered by water, and by being
appropriated to the purpcses of a canal, is thereby im-
proved in its value, and ought in justice to your peti-
tioners and others, the ratepayers of the said parish, to
be liable to, and be charged with its equal and proper
proportion to the porochial rates in the same manner as
all other hereditaments and property in the said parish
of St Marylebone, and according to the local Acts of
Parliament by which the rating of the parish is re-
gulated.
" Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your Ho-
nourable House that such a Bill may not pass into law
without provision being made to effect and carry out the
object aforesaid, and that your petitioners may be heard
against the same by themselves, their counsel," &c.
The petition, on being put, was unanimously adopted
by the vestry.
VOTE OF THANKS TO THE LATE AND ELECTION OF A
NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND GUARDIANS.
Mr. JOSEPH brought forward a motion of which he
had given notice, for a vote of thanks to the retiring
board of directors and guardians of the poor. He ob-
served, that no board ever elected by the vestry had,
during their year of office, more arduous duties to per-
form than that which concluded their year of office that
day. To the retiring board was the parish indebted for
the defeat of the District Asylum job, and, in fact, almost
the destruction of the Poor-law Commission. In other
respects their duties had been most onerous, consequent
on the vast increase of distress ; within the fast six
months the board had bad no less than 20,000 new cases
before them to adjudicate upon.—(Hear.)
Mr. JOHN WILLIAnts seconded the resolution.
Mr. NICHOLAY and Mr. GLASIER considered the pro-
position unealled for, more particularly as there were
some acts on the part of the board of directors and
guardians which had been greatly disapproved of by the
vestry.
The motion was ultimately carried unanimously.
Sir JAMES HAMILTON rose, on the part of the retiring
Board of Directors and Guardians, to thank the vestry
for this compliment paid them. He was sure it would
act as a stimulus to the succeeding board to carry out
their duties with humanity to the poor and justice to
the parish.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir WALTER STIRLING expressed himself as highly
gratified and deeply indebted for this testimony of the
vestry's approbation, considering that the highest re-
ward an individual could receive in the discharge of a
public duty must consist in the approbation of his fellow-
citizens, which was the incentive and best encouragement
to his future exertions, and whenever they might be re-
quired. The duties of a guardian of the poor were suf.
tiei, ntly onerous, and attended with considerable respon-
sibility when undertaken in a spirit of earnestness and
s'al; but whatev, r the amount of those duties, or the
extent of that re.ponsibility during the past year may
have been, they had zeceived an ample equivalent of re-
muneration this day. For his own private feelings he
was almost induced to suppose by this vote of thanks
that this last year of his life had not been spent altoge-
ther uselessly or in vain, and the surest road that al
man could take to his own self-esteem was that which
led him to the conviction that he had been, even in the
remotest degree, of use in his vocation.
It being now one o'clock, the ballot for the members
of the new Board of Directors and Guardians, which
had opened at eleven, *as declared to be closed.
There were 42 candidates to fill the 30 vacancies, those
marked with an asterisk beint new candidates.
At three o'clock the acrutineers reported the state o
the poll as follows :
Mr. Sampson Hodgkinson, 72 ; the Rev. Edward Sco-
bell, 72 ; Sir Walter Stirling, Bart., 71 ; Mr. David
Davies*, 67 ; Mr. Walpole Eyre, 67 ; Sir James John
Hamilton, Bart., 65 ; Mr. George Spencer Smith, 65 ;
Mr. Julius Anderson. 62 ; Mr. William Artand, 62
Mr. Jonathan Soden,* 62 ; Mr. Charles Roberts," 61
Mr. William West,* 60 ; Mr. Thomas Powell, 59 ; Mr.
Charles Carr,* 57 ; MrJacob Bell,* 55 ; Mr. Frederick
Holland,* 55 ; Mr. W. Low, 5G ; Mr. Mallalieu,
54 ; Mr. Charles Caney, 53 ; Mr. Thomas Kimberley
Pritchard,* 52; Mr. Thomas Worlege,* 52; Mr. Alfred
Daniell, 52; Mr. Peter Laurie, 51; Mr. Robert Turner,*
49; Mr. Edward Findley, 30; Mr. James Wilcox,* 46;
Mr. Richard Wright,* 46; Mr. Thomas Cooper, 47;
Mr. Archibald Michie, 45; Mr. Henry Lewis,* 44; Mr.
Thomas Potter, 44; Mr. John Harris, 43; Mr. George
Classor, 41; Mr. Isaac Carter Curtiss, 42; Mr. David
Murray,* 38; Mr. James Blizard,* 38; Mr. Francis
Almson,* 34; Mr. Joseph Bird, 32; Mr. John Primer
De la Fous,* 32; Mr. George Perry, 27; Mr. Robert
Temple,* 25; and Mr. James Henry Dart,* 20.
The Rev. CHAIRMAN declared the first thirty gentle-
men duly elected, and it will be seen that out of the
number elected eleven of the old Board have been un-
seated, and their places supplied by qew candidates.
Among those defeated will be found tile name of Mr.
George Perry, a prominent member of the old Board,
and it will also be perceived that Messrs. Potter and Mi-
ohie were within one vote of sharing a similar fate. The
proceedings of the election excited considerable interest.

JETEEMINED ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE.—At an
early hour on Thursday morning, a constable on duty at
Horton stopped a man who was hurrying along endeavour.
ing to conceal a large bundle he was carrying, and, suspecting
it was the produce of some robbery, he conveyed the
man toof
the Robert-street station. There the man gave the
name Smith, but refused to tell his residence or how he
becamee
possessed of the bundle, which contained a quantity of
workmen's tools, two glazier's diamonds, and several coats;
it was, however, shortly afterwards ascertained that a house
in the New North-road had been broken into by cutting a
pane out of one of the windows. and articles of that descrip-
tion carried away by the thief or thieves, and the prisoner
was therefore locked up in one of the cells at the rear. His
person was searched previous to his being placed in the cell,
and everything in his possession, as it was believed taken
from him; but ten minutes had scarcely elapsed after he
was lodged there, when a man who was confined with him
saw him stoop down over the watercloset, and, not see-
ing him afterwards move, thought something had happened
to him and went to his assistance, when he was horrified at
finding the blood pouring in a stream from a frightful wound
in his throat, which he had cut completely across with a
knife he had secreted. An alarm was raised by the other
prisoner, and Messrs. Coward and Amsden, two surgeons,
were instantly sent for, who dressed the wound, which they
pronounced of a very dangerous description, and ordered the
man's immediate removal to the hospital. A cab was, there-
fore, procured, and the unfortunate man placed inside it,
with a constable on the box to watch him and render assist-
ance; but the vehicle had only proceeded as far as Chart-
street, and was going at a very rapid rate, when the prisoner
was seen to leap out of it, and, with a desperate energy that
V'" marvellous in his weak and exhausted condition, dash
down one of the by-streets, through which and three others
he succeeded iii running before he was re-captured in a
fainting state. He was again placed in the cab and driven
to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where, at the time of the last
inquiries by the police, he was pronounced to be in imminent
dayer, aria but
Re E very small hopes entertained of his recovery.
..4tCaor ME.mr.—A correspondent
of the DroghetiaT
regret to learn that severa of l
Saturday writes as follows :—" I
ploughing farmers in this district have a ne-
cessity for
fields of wheat; indeed I saw some
fields, which after the
platanost and snow had a healthy pearance, ploughed u
,?ulared for the reception of'
barley or oats. The kind of ladPnr
gowltioich the failure is most
prevalent is under lees, and, stran
is itshdoteisciri
ti description
of ground did remarkably well last year.saYlt,
maw,
th the centi-
pede kind of insect is luting th plant—probably g at
Pe'le or wireworin : be it what it
at of the county Me e crop Is suffering
very much. In ath, and also in o -
fields, and only a few of
which, I visited within the last fe days,Pr
lions of Louth,
I
saw a great many indifferent- looking_
what may be called good ones. I consider,ai when we have a
change from the present scorching weather, that the
wheat crop will prove better than farmers imagine.
fi❑ Thursday
last, while the men making excavations betwixt shafts
Nos. 2 and 3 in the railway tunnel, near Perth, were
thefiringy
found a block of superincumbent rock, about forty tons in
weight, had fallen from above, in the spot where they were
working but half a minute before. Having examined the
place from wine' it fell, they found that a slight stroke
of the hammer would have brought it to the ground, and
that their escape was providential,—Eclinburgh Weekly
itegieter.

- - - -
ASSESSMENT OF MARYLEBONE TO THE
COUNTY AND POLICE RATE.
On Saturday, at the Marylebone Vestry, Mr. FLOOD,
the vestry clerk, reported. " That pursuant to an order
from a committee of her Majesty's justices, acting under
an Aet of Parliament passed in the eighth and ninth
years of the reign of her present Majesty, intituled,
an Act to Amend the Laws relating to the Assessing
of County Rates,' he attended such committee at the
Clerkenwell Sessions House, on Tuesday last, and was
examined as to the mode adopted by the vestry of Mary-
lebone, in assessing the poor-rate, and that he was in-
formed by the committee (James Wm. Freshfield, Esq„
in the chair), that the magistrates' construction of the
Act of Parliament the 6th and 7th Wm. IV., intituled,
an Act to Regulate Parochial Assessments,' is that the
rateable value to be assessed to the poor means the rack
rent, after deducting therefrom the probable average
annual cost of repairs and insurance, that is to say—that
person paying a rent of 1001. a year, and the presumed
average annual cost of repairs and insurance being 10/.,
he should be assessed en a rental of 901. To the Vestry
of St. Marylebone, 2d March, 1847."
Mr. G. DANIELL, in moving that the report be receiged
and entered on the minutes, observed,,that the parish of
Marylebone had for a long time struggled to obtain
some alleviation with regard to the immense assessment
charged upon them as compared with other metropolitan
paris.lies. In consequence of this excess, the vestry had
hoped that the magistrates would have been enabled to
Bice them some relief under the Act 6th and 7th Wm.
IV.; but, from the construction put upon that Act of
Parliament by the committee of magistrates, it appeared
that very little, if any, relief could be afforded. The
magistrates told them they might appeal, and if success-
ful, they, the magistrates, would then have to assess
other parishes higher to the county-rate, in order to
produce a sufficient sum to meet the expenditure ; but
any parish appealed against which could prove that
there was even a single house in the parish appealing,
not assessed upon its rack rental, then such appeal must
fall to the ground. The Poor-law Commissioners had
also the power to grant relief in such eases, but that
parish not being under the poor-law were deprived of
it. The parish of Marylebone, at that moment, was
assessed to the county and police-rate upon a rental of
no less a sum than 340,2161. per annum.
Mr. NICHOLAY seconded the resolution, which was
carried.