Transactions Volume 18 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ...which would expire in 1889. It was stated a few days ago, at a meeting of the United Wards' Club of the City of London at which he presided, that the coal-dues amounted to 430,000 a year. Of these dues, 9rf. went to the Metropolitan Board of Works and id. to the City, or, to speak more strictly, 8d. and 4d., because they cost a penny to collect. With regard to the general plan, he noticed that the Law Courts were not opened up so well as they might be if the street coming down to them from the north were continued to the Thames Embankment. He doubted if it were wise for a public body to build houses for the poor in London, and he was confident that, if they did, they would lose very largely. It was an objectionable system, and if leased as suggested, they might get houses on their hands at an inconvenient time. Some of the outlying alterations shown in the plan were open to improvement, but the East-end portion of the scheme appeared to him to be exceedingly good, and he hoped, having some knowledge of the squalid condition of the courts and streets in that district, that some of these improvements would not be very long delayed. The idea of a large consistent scheme of the kind to be authenticated by a public body, and carried out as opportunity offered, was an admirable one. The suggestion that leases, especially of business property, should be allowed to wear out, leaving the leaseholder without compensation at the end of his term, would scarcely commend itself, ho thought, to the Meeting, for in such cases the rule was to renew the lease, and not to keep the ultimate forfeiture of the business hanging over the tenant. Mr. T. Blashill (Fellow) thought they would hardly be doing justice to the writer of the Paper if they failed, ...