The Street-driver’s salary was the next to be grappled with, although it was a serious item of two pounds a year, the question was settled with but little discussion, so unanimous in this case were the able debaters. The said salary of £2 was enjoyed by Mr. John Duly, an ex-policeman, but as the work of a streetward was then being discharged by the police themselves, it was decided to discontinue the salary, although they could not abolish the office. The foregoing arrangements of salaries were enough for one sitting; but later in the year (Dec. 3rd), Mr. Foster, as Inspector of Weights and Measures, having applied for an increase in salary from £30 to £45, in consequence of increased duties, the application was not complied with, the general opinion being that the money was quite sufficient. Mr. Foster, as well as Mr. Duley, had evidently fallen on unlucky times.
Cemetery Matters. At the June monthly meeting, Ald. Ross said he had heard that they were getting up an opposition burial ground in the western part of the borough. To this remark, Coun. Putland replied that it was not they who were doing it, but the owner of St. Leonards Church, he being desirous of closing the one under his own Act of Parliament that was still open. As connected with the Borough Cemetery, at the December meeting a vote of thanks was passed to Miss North, of Croft House, for the gift of 1000 seedling green oaks and 500 seedling evergreen sweet bays.
A House in Difficulties. The owner of No. 4 Kentish Buildings, a house built on the waste beach land claimed by the Corporation – having had notice to quit, Mr. Barham, as purchaser of the said house under misleading conditions, now applied to the Corporation for a lease of the property at a moderate rent. Mrs. Nash (the widow of Samuel Nash, the original owner) having died, the house had fallen into the hands of Mr. Barham, who had advanced several sums of money, under the assurance that the house was freehold, and which money by the terms of the will, was to be paid by the house. At the Council meeting of the 7th May Mr. Barham’s application was deferred for further consideration. In 1830 (see Vol. 1, chapter IV) Samuel Nash, having built a small house between the Priory water and his other houses at Kentish Place and without permission on land which he was allowed to enclose in 1822, the Corporation exacted a ground rent of 20s a year, which was to commence from the 1st of June 1830. At the June meeting of the Council, it may be supposed, these conditions were made clear, and therefore a long discussion ensued, with curious -
