LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE LOSTWITHIEL CORPORATION. •

[To THE Ennos OF THE SPECTATOR:1 S111,—In answer to the letter by " Vindex," which appeared in your issue for last week, will you permit me to offer the following observations ? " Vindex "—who, for anything I know to the con- trary, may be either a member of the Lostwithiel Corporation, or a friend or relative of one of the members—writes his letter "for the correction" of my "errors." As a matter of fact,—leaving out mere inferences and interpretations of his own, and con- fining myself only to what I really did say, " Vindex " has but one "error," if indeed it be an error, to bring against me ;. that -" error " relates to the Vicar of Lostwithiel, and I have already made an explanation on that point.

When " Vindex" assumes all through his letter an anonymous "informant," he himself commits an "error." I have six or seven informants ; Mr. Tremayne, one of the Members for East Cornwall, knows this to be the case. Two—who gave me most important information—do not live in Lostwithiel ; and one of them, who lives a long way off, is not even known to my other informants. Of my Lostwithiel informants or correspondents, the two principal ones belong to opposite political and Church parties, and are not friends. So much for the insinuation that I have promoted an attack founded on the private malice of an in- dividual informant.

I never said of Lostwithiel that the Corporation spends its income "without benefit to a single person" (though I did say this of some of the unreformed Corporations); it benefits a .good number of people by what it spends, but those people are ntostly members of the Corporation, and the general body of the inhabitants do not get the advantage they ought all equally to derive from the Corporation income, an income which, whether spent rightly or spent wrongly, is spent without publication of accounts, audit, or control.

I never inferred "the dishonesty of almost every one in the town." There are about 1,400 inhabitants in the borough, and I spoke but of 26 persons, residents and non-residents included. Neither did I impute individual "dishonesty " even to any member of the Corporation. What I contend is that the vast majority of them have a direct pecuniary interest—not to speak of love of power—in keeping things as they are, and things as they are, are very bad.

As for the Corporation accounts, they are not published for the general use and information of the inhabitants ; they are not clearly kept ; a little bald statement, too brief to be intelligible, is privately printed on a single slip of paper for each year, for the use of members. I say privately, for (as was not the case in 1843) the printer's name no longer appears. "Rents," on the face of these "accounts," fluctuate considerably, and we can discover also that property is being got rid of without the consent or knowledge of the inhabit- ants. Thus the last account admits a sale of land for £50— possibly a very large price—but large or small, why is the town property thus disposed of at the caprice of an irresponsible, close Corporation ? " Vindex" contends that the accounts prove "satisfactory forethought and care." I contend that they do not ; I ask, can a property be considered to be managed with "satisfactory forethought and care" which is let for the most part by the Corporation to themselves, without public tender, and when the parochial rate-books disclose that the net rateable rents are greater than the rents actually received by the Corpora- tion? Is this "satisfactory?"

I admit the £40 paid yearly by Fowey "in lieu of all dues and rights," but that sum is also received for the discharge by the Corporation of their functions as "ancient conservators of the water of Fowey," functions which they altogether neglect, having allowed the river's channel to be choked with pollutions, and its stream to be checked by the silting-up of their own bridge. They have exacted £40 from Fowey, a sum which can ill be afforded by that decayed little port ; they pocket all, and do nothing. This is the result of an arrangement between a Cor- poration (Lostwithiel), of which Mr. R. Foster is the leading member, and the Fowey Harbour Commission, of which the same Mr. Foster is chairman. Is this "satisfactory"?

As to the elementary school, to which Lostwithiel Corporation contributed /350 for building purposes, I make no attack on the Corporation on this head, School-Board and educational matters not coming within the scope of my subject ; but I may here say —with reference to the £350—that £90 of that sum is believed

locally to be a saving effected by the late Vicar out of the child- ren's school-pence at the town school, which amount the Vicar, before his death, handed over to Mr. R. Foster's care. The objects

of this close Corporation in making so large a grant have been a good deal called in question on the spot. It is said that by getting

up an unnecessarily big school-house a good deal was made by

members of the Corporation who do work in the building trades. Mr. R. Foster I believe to be personally an honourable man, quite

above any pecuniary plunder, but he is not above liking to keep possession of an uncontrolled power, and such is the advantageous position in which this large Corporation grant to the school has placed Mr. R. Foster, that he is himself the chairman of that school committee, his wife is on the Committee, his aunt is on it, one of his brothers is on it, and the rest consist, for the most part, of dependents of his family. I am informed that Mr. R. Foster is also banker to the Corporation and banker to the school. Real objects may, therefore, exist, when a grant of this sort is made,. which need neither be pecuniarily corrupt nor yet purely charitable. To turn now to the £42 15s. paid by contract for lighting the. town. Till a recent death-vacancy, the chairman of the Gas Company was one of the governing body of the Corporation, and others among the principal members of the Corporation are shareholders. The local complaint is that the lamps are not lit frequently enough, and are turned out too early, especially in parts of the town where none of the grandees of the Corporation reside. Thus the inhabitants are starved in their supply of gas, that the Company's dividends may increase. This charge may be true orit may be false, but the grievance lies in this,—that a close Corporation is beyond control, and a resident, if dissatisfied

either with the quality of the gas or the enforcement of the con- tract, would lay his complaints either before the Gas Company or before the Corporation in vain.

As to the sums paid in salaries, as shown by the accounts, several of these are, perhaps, very trifling in amount, but those who do not get salaries get two good dinners, or something out of the money spent on repairs to buildhrgs, or out of payments for "watering and sweeping," or out of the other disbursements.

What I complain of here is this,—that the Corporation, though required annually to re-elect Assistant-Burgesses, keep on the same min perpetually in those offices, and these the very men who, one as organist, one as schoolmaster, two as constables, and so forth, are receiving money from the Corporation. There is clearly no necessity for these transactions. I never said that the accounts "exhibit a wanton and dishonest perversion of funds,' but I do maintain that they are badly kept, that they might be audited with advantage, and that the corporate revenues are mismanaged.

With reference to the "Church scandal," " Vindex " does not defend the connection which exists between the Corporation and the Church, and no good purpose can be served by following him into the statements which he makes.

Mr. R. Foster has quite lately closed his tan-yard, and declines to sell it for fresh tannery purposes. This last fact proves that Mr. R. Foster has at length come tardily to admit that the tanneg ought never to have existed where it did.

I have, all through this letter, taken the Corporation property as worth only what the Corporation say that it is worth, but I have reason to believe that if it were let at its full value, it would pro- duce nearer £1,000 than £400 a year. The revenues arc spent and the town is governed by four persons, of whom two are brothers, one their ironmonger, and one their doctor. There are two other aldermen, of whom one was bankrupt, and has not lived in the town for twenty years, and one refuses to serve. No one else has any voice whatever in the government of the place except the seventeen assistant-burgesses, who have no vote in any matter except mayor-choosing, which is arranged beforehand, and which is a farce. What a farce it is, is shown by the fact that the second Mr. Foster was chosen mayor by them, in obedience to the orders of his brother, the very day that he was first ad- mitted a member, and when he was not a rate-payer or inhabitant of the town. "The seventeen" are mostly dependents of "the four," and this I say deliberately, having before me as I write a complete list of their names, offices, and occupations.

The sanitary state of the town, as to which " Vindex" says not one word, is, as I showed in the House of Commons, utterly dis- graceful, and this is admitted by a gentleman who has made a semi-official and most elaborate defence of the Corporation in the Western Morning News. My firm conviction is that the condition of Lostwithiel is in every way as shameful as I said it was in the House of Commons.—I am, Sir, &c., 76 Sloane Street, S. W. CHAULF:8 W. D1LKE.