cattle) was, later in the year, one of the gentlemen-owers in the Black Joke galley who were thrown into a rough sea by the upsetting of their boat during the regatta. It so happens that at the time when this portion of my local history is being re-arranged (Feb. 1897) a letter in the Observer meets my eyes, in which Mayor Gant, while referring to the late Robert Ranking as Mayor in 1836 (Deputy-Mayor it should be), says "Some of your readers will be sorry to learn that his younger surviving son by his first wife, Surgeon-General James Lancaster Ranking (my friend and schoolfellow) died last week at Leamington in his 83rd year." It has been shewn that in 1833, the Corporation, acting on the recommendation of the committee which they appointed to investigate afresh the affairs of the Charities, applied for and obtained the balance of £139. 9s of the Saunders's Charity which has been lying in the Court of Chancery. Of this sum, the Town Clerk's bill of £39 for recovering the money was ordered to be paid; also the £44 9s 9d that was due to Mr. North, the remainder being applied to the building of a new school. It afterwards happened that the Vice-Chancellor ordered the money thus recovered to be refunded, and the Corporation believing that the demand was as unfair as it was imperative, gave instructions at their June assembly to consult with Messrs. Knight and Ching (Corporation Counsel) for their opinion as to the expediency of appealing against the Vice-Chancellor's order. This opinion being in favour of submission, the Corporation at their June meeting gave an order for the re-payment of the said £139 9s. This was a sore subject, not only with the Corporation, but with the townspeople generally, who spoke with no uncertain sound as to what they considered an unrighteous extraction. The matter remained in abeyance until 1849-50, when an effort was made to get the money back again, and when after much evasive and vexatious formality (to be described in its proper place) the Corporation received the money, less the cost, they found they had lost £45 by the transaction.
The many costly suits since then in which the Corporation have been engaged show how likely are municipal bodies to be fleeced by going to law.
The reader need not be surprised that after this experience in 1834 the Corporation endeavoured to improve the financial position in other ways, although even in that, they were not always successful.
There was a small piece of stone beach waste in front of the Royal Oak Hotel and adjoining premises that Messrs. Bryant and Jennings wanted to purchase, but the money demanded for the same (£40) was held to be too exorbitant, that the applicants declined to purchase; hence the deviation from a straight line still existent at Caroline Place[a]
The Corporation entered an action against George Prior, he having refused to pay the £20 demanded of him from building on the waste beach at Beach Cottages. I have no record of how the suit terminated, but I find that an order was given for Prior to be proceeded against for £20 1s. 10d. costs in the said action. Similar proceedings were to be taken against Messrs. Payne and Harvey, the defendants re Parkers Charity, for the whole amount of costs in a recent action against them. I have also no details of this suit, but as Mr. Harvey was a tenant of the Fortune of War inn at the time, and Mr. Payne, a pastry-cook had an ice-house adjoining, described many years after, as a discovered "tub hole" it is presumable that the action was for encroachments.
Further Transactions of the Corporation
It was further ordered at the June meeting that as the Watch house at Mercer's Bank was about to be given up, the building to be let by tender; also that if any further expenses be incurred by the -
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