Page:Item 9 1861.pdf/77

to come so far from their homes. The rating of the borough was now £90,560, or two-thirds to three-fourths more than it was when the existing Town Hall was built. They ought now to have a structure which should be a credit and an ornament to the town, which certainly could not be said of the existing ​building​. He moved that a committee be appointed to look out for a site suitable for erecting thereon a new Town Hall. – Coun. Putland said he knew nothing of the motion till he saw it in the paper of that morning. It was not the first time for him to talk about a new Hall, for he had brought it forward twelve years ago. That, perhaps, was too early, but it was not too early now. We were now nearly 20,000 more in number than when their present Hall was built, and he looked upon the assessment as equivalent to £100,000. The present Hall was neither suitable nor sizeable for the magisterial business nor the Council business; they were, so to speak, “hip and thigh” upon one another, and blocked in between the ​road​way and the church-yard. The site for a Town Hall should embrace also a police-station, a town clerk’s office and a surveyor’s office, and in a situation where the burgesses should not have to drag up to the extreme end of the borough as he had had to for five-and-twenty years. He was not anticipating an exact central spot, but he wanted a site far more westward than the present one. There were three railway stations within the borough and all of them greatly westward of their Town Hall. He felt great pleasure in seconding the resolution. – Coun. Vidler did not agree with the previous speakers. It would be great injustice to move the old Town Hall. As to the distance, all he could say was that if gentlemen were too idle to walk up to the old Hall, they had better stay away. He should strongly oppose any measure of the sort. – Coun. Bromley said, Never had any measure involving a large outlay of public money been backed up by so weak an argument as the proposal put forward that day. With the exception of the growth of the town its advocates had not shown its necessity at all. Was it because Hastings had grown westward, they were to move the public edifices westward? He hoped the members of the Council would nip the proposal in the bud, throw it out altogether, knock it down at the first blow, and never allow it to go into committee. If they had five times the space, it would be filled with the lowest riff-raff and scum of Hastings as it was now. He did not say it was the most convenient place they could have – certainly not; but alterations could be made at a small expense. He hoped the Council would crush it at once. He would strongly oppose the motion – Ald. Ginner had been studying the question ever since he knew it was to be put to the agenda. He had had some experience in the -