under the Public Health Act, the whole of the local taxes, including poor-rates, had risen to 13s. in the £, of which 5/3 was on the Public Health Act a/c. Coun. Bromley was also an advocate for delay. He did not know how much displeasure he might incur by advising delay, but he was satisfied that nine-tenths of the inhabitants would say the Board was quite right in letting the drainage stand over till the town could better bear the expense. He would therefore move that the drainage be taken into consideration at the meeting in August, 1855.
No delay. The Mayor laid before the meeting a copy of a memorial, which had recently been sent up to the General Board by the physicians, surgeons, and principal inhabitants residing between the Crown lands and the St. Leonards Archway, complaining that the Local Board did not seem disposed to carry out the drainage. He was also instructed by their Town Clerk to say that if the work was put off till August, 1855, all the expense of a consulting engineer would be entirely lost and they would have to call in an engineer afresh. Ald. Scrivens, in a lengthy and telling speech, said the question had been repeatedly postponed, and they must now decide, one way or another. If posponed(sic) till Aug. 1855, not an atom of work would be done till 1856. Let them remember that after the cholera in 1848, they petitioned the General Board, and sanitary reform became the popular request. Let them look back to the battle that was fought to get the Public Health Act. When that was obtained, they had plans prepared which had been approved by the General Board and by a special engineer, and now, when they had come to the very point of action, delay was again advised. He considered the need for drainage out-weighed the question of expense. He was afraid that, with all due deference to themselves, they had not much choice in the matter; for, if memorials were sent to the General Board, the Local Board would be pressed into action. He moved, as an amendment, that the general drainage be commenced in February next. Coun. Deudney seconded, and remarked that as a member of the Local Board, although he opposed the Act being applied to that part of St. Leonards west of the Archway, he would do his best, individually, to carry out the Act. The amendment was carried by nine to three.
The Press Supports immediate Action. The Hastings News came to the support of the medical practitioners and other residents of St. Mary Magdalen who memoralized(sic) the General Board of Health to prevent further delay in carrying out the general drainage, the principal object for which they assisted Hastings in obtaining the Health of Towns Act. The following are a few extracts from an article in that journal “The Local Board has exceeded our most sanguine expectations. The local drainage is not to be delayed to the time of the Greek Kalends[a], and we are not to be taxed to an -
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "Notes", but no corresponding <references group="Notes"/> tag was found
