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"The reports he received from the police and other persons revealed the condition of Ireland generally as to peace and order as being very satisfactory." During the month of October 1907, twenty-nine claims for compensation from the rates in respect of malicious injuries had been proved and granted in twelve counties, the amount levied from the ratepayers being about £900.
In a small pamphlet, forming an appeal to the ratepayers of Keswick on this subject, there occur the following observations respecting the state of a place called Braithwaite, which we candidly believe might apply to a hundred other villages in England, and more particularly Scotland: 'The village of Braithwaite, for example, contains, in proportion to its population, more dirt, disease, and death than any decent town.
An electioneering manifesto would be out of place in the pages of this Review; but any suspicion that may arise in the mind of the reader that the following pages partake of that nature, will be dispelled, if he reflect that they cannot be published until after the day on which the ratepayers of the metropolis will have decided which candidates for seats upon the Metropolitan School Board they will take, and which they will leave.
The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings appealed to the public conscience: an agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the ratepayers the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved 6d. a week.
More than one-half of this fund has already been hypothecated for the costs of flotation of the twenty millions of Land Stock which have already been issued, and under the present system of finance, after a further issue of another twenty millions of stock, the whole loss will be thrown on the County Councils, and through them on the ratepayers, who have already been called upon to pay £70,000 to meet certain of the losses in this connection, which amount to twelve per cent. of the value of the stock floated.
"You cannot go on even if you wish to," Gale exclaimed. "One of the troopers will stop you before you reach the huts." "Oh, the troopers are there too, are they? It's well to be a miserly old skinflint to have the State providing troopers at the ratepayers' expense to watch over one. Or maybe they're also giving sympathy to the poor distressed lady. Well, I'll interrupt them."
Besides electing parish officers and granting the rates, the vestry-meeting could enact by-laws; and all ratepayers had an equal voice in its deliberations. The Puritans who settled in New England had grown up under such parish government as is here described, and they were used to hearing the parish called, on some occasions and for some purposes, a township.
"The palace-like jails which now disgrace our civilization, and cause expenses so vast, are chiefly the fruit of this pernicious trade.... What shadow of reason is there for doubting that such sales as are necessary... will be far more sagaciously managed by a Local Board which the ratepayers elect for this sole purpose, than either by magistrates... or by an irresponsible and multitudinous Committee of Parliament?
And infinite care that their families do not inhabit them. Some day when we are wise but wisdom comes so slowly these things will not be left to private enterprise, for municipalities will provide and own them at no loss to the ratepayers either. Then decency, though homeless, will have a chance of survival, and moral and physical cleanliness some chance to live, even in a common lodging-house.
"Please, sir, Liz," the child stammered, looking down. "You're Sam Tregenza's grandchild, hey?" "Please, sir." "Then do you go home an' tell your grandfather, with my compliments, he ought to know better than to allow it. It's robbin' the ratepayers, that's what it is." "Yes, sir," she murmured, glancing down dubiously at the piece of wood in her hand. "You don't understand me," said the Elder.
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