Folios 169-173. To: The General Board of Health. From: Charles E Deacon, Town Clerk...

Folios 169-173.

To: The General Board of Health.

From: Charles E Deacon, Town Clerk and Clerk to the Local Board of Health, Southampton [Hampshire].

Subject Matter: Letter acknowledging receipt of a letter dated 28 February 1857, upon the subject of the objection of the Local Board to pay certain charges in respect of the cost of the preliminary inquiry at Southampton. Deacon advises that the Special Works Committee are of opinion that the Local Board are not liable to pay the charges in question. They are said to have considered that the very large item charged for printing the report ought not to be made against the Board, and that if there was any public necessity for printing the report ('which the Committee consider there was not'), the expense should not be paid by the town. Deacon submits that all that the Public Health Act 1848 contemplates is that the report should be published, 'for which purpose some half dozen copies were necessary to be written'. He adds that it is upon the same and other grounds that they entertain objections to the items amounting to £94 14s 8d.

Deacon explains that it is not the Committee's wish to raise objections to accounts which they are legally liable to pay, and feel that they are only discharging their public duty in taking exception to the said items, 'and they feel assured the General Board will not consider their objections of a trivial character, nor that the Committee are acting from a spirit of opposition to the Board, from whom they have at all times received every advice and assistance in carrying out their responsible duties under the Public Health Act'.

[Folios 171-173 are copies of the accounts in question].