Parish Of Chelsea.
The Times, 1824-03-15T00:00:00

Sir,-A psrinted copy of a report, prcsented .16vst3 of Chel- sea parish, by a cotnmittee of inhabitants Aepated bya7former ves- try to investigate the accounts ofrthe overseers -,f the poor for the year ending Lady-dav, 1822, is in general bircuTadtbi throughout the parish. The prominent facts to be collected from this report are- I hat the local magistrates haAl been 80 assured, by a tbrmer re- port of the committee, and by a partial inspection, that the accoun.s of the overseers would not bear the character of truth and accuracy, that they would not permit the officers to swearto them as such. That the conmmittee, being stopped by this bar, interposed by the consciences of the local magistrates,. suspended their direct measures for a time, and afterwards decided on a criminal prosecution against Cartwright, one - of the overseers on specific charges affecting his ac- counts, it the getting up of wihl prosecttion "ivarious impedi- ments and uncertainties were 'foun)d to exist, some of which were successfully mset and removed, while others, wlhichi could not be al- together reduced or cleared uD, were guarded against or counteract- ed by every means which prudence and professional judgment could That, in this stage of the business, the defendant, r. Cartwright, who was in a dangerous state of health, through the' mediation of the rector, applied to the committee for a compromuise, and offered to re- l]iquish the half, nay the whole, of a balance of 6201. and upvards, for which he had made the parish his debtor in his accounts, rather than that t he prosecution should be persevered in; and thst, ulti- mnately, the committee considered it not inconsistent witb justice, highly expedient as a protection against a possible failure in the pro- secution, and most in accordance wfiththe dictates of charity, to ac- cede to this ofter; and accordingly that, ia consideration of a nomi- nal sum, and the abandonment of the prosecution, dlr. Cartwright excuted a release to the parish of the aleged balance in his favoar. As regards Mr. Cartwright, these facts are strong enough to lead to conviction in the mind of everv impartial man that his accounts would not bear the light, and there ran be no doubt that the duty undertaken by the committee was ably conducted, and that their de- cision in favour of the compromise NvaS, under all the circum- stances, judicious; but, at the same time, I should have been glad to have seen a little less of vanity in the report of these achieve- ments-something short of an assamy'tion conveyed by the language of the report. and by the calculation at its close, tthat the " net sav- ings" resulting to the parish from the labours of the committee were 7701. 12s sL., as lithis rnoney (of which the grcater part was obviously wrung fromn the timidity of the valetudinarian defendant, and accepted mainly from an apprehension of failure in the prosecu- tion, to which a recent example of the uncertainty of session law might reasonably have given rise) was irrecovera,ble by the parish in any other way than by the means used by the committee, k,aeusua, flLarcn ij. _ I amn, Sir, vours, &c. C. D* - PA7?q , ^A-MI'It o"i,