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Sayer’s land for a general cemetery. Thus the report was rejected in order to extinguish the Burial Board; the Burial Board was to be extinguished in order to introduce the Town Council, and the Town Council was to be introduced in order to get the land belonging to Miss Sayer. We have now another link in the chain, and the Town Council is to get Miss Sayer’s land in order to advance the pecuniary interest of St. Mary-in-the-Castle. The Castle parish is the golden thread which runs through all.
According to the far-seeing Mr. Vidler and the facetious Mr. Nicholas, each parish is justified in looking out for itself. [With more intimate acquaintance of the latter authority and his self assured importance, I should have felt myself compelled, even without a breach of charity, to call him the arrogant Mr. Nicholas]. Thus, Mr. Nicholas is to work the Burial Board with all his might as a lever to elevate the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, and Mr. Vidler is to do the same for St. Mary-in-the-Castle. And in like manner we suppose the various trios who represent the various parishes, should try – each triumvirate by itself – to elevate its own particular parish according to

“The good old rule, the simple plan
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can!

Now, although the News has the honour of being printed and published in Mr. Vidler’s favourite parish, yet it is our duty, as journalists, carefully to avoid any attempt at elevating this parish to the injury or interests of the borough generally. It has always been our aim to benefit the borough in its entirety. The News is not a parochial organ, nor an organ of the East Ward or the West Ward. We regretted the conduct of the western parishes in rejecting Miss Sayer’s land, and we are as much in earnest in regretting the conduct of the Castle vestry in rejecting the Magdalen land. The Burial Board has been established for the benefit of the whole borough. We rejoiced when it was formed, for we then hoped that although the Public Health Act had not found its way within the walls of St. Leonards, the Burial Board would be able to cement the borough in one beneficent undertaking, and that if the two wards would not live under one regime for sanitary purposes, they might at least deposit their bones under the protection of a united Board. But as the ruling passion is often strong in death, so it turns out that the force of petty interests and local jealousies will not allow the inhabitants of a borough like Hastings to enjoy the benefit of a general cemetery. ‘Far as the East is from the West’ means a good deal in this neighbourhood. We can only wonder that the legislature should so ignore the principle of parochial patriotism – common throughout England – as to place a united Board at its mercy.