PAVING.

The cost of the item of paving during the past year, exceeding the estimate by four hundred and fifty pounds, has been unusually heavy,—viz., £3042 2s. 10d., after allowing for the sum chargeable to the several public companies and others for works executed for them. This is about twelve hundred and fifty pounds more than the cost of the same item of expenditure in the year 1856–7, after making the same allowances; upwards of four hundred pounds more than in 1857–8, eight hundred pounds more than in 1858–9, and six hundred pounds more than last year. It has been occasioned mainly by the purchase of the following materials, and by works executed in the places hereinafter named:—

Broken Granite for Roads £1558 7 10
Flints for ditto 238 3 1
Gravel for ditto 137 0 6
Lombard and Duke Street . . . Works executed by Contractors for Masons’ Work 177 15 9
Hans Street . . . ditto 29 9 0
Queen’s Road East . . . ditto 30 1 6
Lower Sloane Street . . . ditto 13 9 5
Green’s Row . . . ditto 170 10 1
Ann’s Place, Milman’s Row . . . ditto 27 13 9
George Street . . . ditto 260 18 5
Moore Street . . . ditto 19 1 3
King Street . . . ditto 10 10 10
Milman’s Row . . . ditto 10 0 0
King’s Road—various parts . . . ditto 49 1 2
Halsey Street . . . ditto 13 15 0
Walton Street . . . ditto 17 7 9
Sloane Street . . . ditto 17 10 6
Queen’s Road West . . . ditto 24 8 7
Caversham Street . . . ditto 57 4 1
Robert Street . . . ditto 34 3 3
Stone sent to the Depôt . . . ditto 36 5 9

In the last report it was stated that the question at issue between the Chief Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Works, &c., and the vestry, as to the taking charge and maintenance of the Chelsea Bridge Road, was in an unsatisfactory state, and the position of that question was stated in the appendix to the fourth report (No. 9), at pages 45 to 52, up to the receipt of Mr. Austin’s letter of the 27th June, 1860. The proceedings since that date will be found in the Appendix to this report, No. 9 (pages 51 to 55).

LIGHTINGS

The Metropolis Gas Act received the royal assent on the 28th August, 1860: it contains fifty-seven clauses, many of them most important for the protection of public and private consumers. By the twenty-seventh section of the act (23 & 24 Vic., cap. 125) the vestry are required to provide apparatus for testing the illuminating power and purity of the gas, and to appoint a competent person as examiner; and by the same section the gas companies are required to erect, at a distance not less than one thousand yards from their works, experimental meters with the necessary apparatus for testing the illuminating power of the gas supplied. In alleged compliance with this requirement the London Gas light company have appointed a testing station at the house No. 73, Besborough Street, Pimlico.

Mr. Hughes [8] observes with reference to this twenty-seventh section,—

“There was some discussion as to the propriety of making the requirements of this clause compulsory instead of merely permissive. After the fullest consideration however, it was thought essential, with the view of avoiding discussions in vestries, and especially with the view of counteracting the underhand and secret influence which the gas companies exert in many vestries and district boards, to make the clause compulsory. There are many instances on record, where powers are given to local authorities, and yet these powers, although highly important to the public interests, have never hitherto been exercised. Hence an additional reason for positively requiring them to provide apparatus, &c., for testing the gas, and to appoint and pay an inspector for the purpose. It is true that no time is fixed within which the apparatus is to be provided and the inspector appointed, but I apprehend it will be competent for any ratepayer to compel, by mandamus, the performance of this duty by any vestry or district board, within a reasonable time.

“The second section of the clause imposes an obligation on the gas companies—namely, that each of them shall within six months erect at the prescribed distance from their works, an experimental meter and other apparatus for testing the illuminating power of the gas.

“Now these two obligations, the one on the local authorities of the metropolis, and the other on the gas companies, must not be confounded, because they are perfectly distinct, and the one is not to be a substitute for the other. In the first place each local authority in the metropolis—i.e., each vestry and district board, about thirty-eight in number, constituted under the Metropolis Local Management Act, is to erect its own apparatus, and appoint its own inspector; and from future clauses it appears that the act contemplates a continuous and regular succession of testing by this inspector, both for purity and illuminating power. The evidence of this inspector however as to any defects in the gas, will not be conclusive until his report has been confirmed by testing the gas at the prescribed distance of 1000 yards from the works. Hence the necessity for the obligation on the company. The next clause will better explain the mode of proceeding by the inspector, whenever he finds the gas to be below the prescribed standard of illuminating power. With reference to purity there is nothing about testing for this at the distance of 1000 yards, and therefore the test for this may be made wherever the inspector pleases.

“With respect to the number of separate places for testing the gas, inasmuch as there are thirteen companies included within the act, and each must provide a testing house 1000 yards distant from their works, there must evidently be not less than thirteen of these. [9] But if each local authority also erects a separate one at some central part of its district, thirty-eight of these will be necessary. A power is afterwards given for two or more local authorities to combine, and then the number will probably be somewhat diminished.

“All this necessity for a duplicate set of testing establishments is rendered essential by the absurd requirement of the act as to testing the gas at 1000 yards distance from the works. Now as the erection of this apparatus by the companies and the establishment of a permanent testing place away from their works will be very expensive to the companies, it is just possible they may be very glad to be relieved from this expense, and may consent to the testing at the establishment of the local authority being sufficient evidence of the illuminating power as well as the purity of the gas. This is the more probable as it must be perfectly well known to the companies—at least to their engineers—that so far as the company is concerned the gas may just as well be tested in the centre of any district supplied, as at the limited distance of 1000 yards from the works.”

Under the provisions of the fiftieth section of this act, the duty is imposed upon the Metropolitan Board of Works of raising the costs and charges incident to its passing; and that board have accordingly levied under their precepts upon the several vestries and district boards, the necessary amounts for meeting the claims received.

The accounts sent in by the various parties were submitted to the proper officer of the House of Commons for taxation with the following result:—