If the parent select a Board School, the School Board, on his application, may, if they think fit, remit the school fee. The payment or remission of the school fee will not subject the parent to any disability. IV.--FREE INSTRUCTION. Subject to conditions to be made by an order of the Education Department, a child under 11 years of age who obtains a certificate that he has attended a Public Elementary School 350 times a year, for two, three, four or five years according to circumstances, and, also, that he has attained a Standard (to be fixed by the Department) in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, will be entitled to have his school fees paid for him by the Education Department at a public Elementary School for three years more. BY ORDER OF THE BOARD. 15_th November_, 1876. [Footnote 1: All Elementary Schools in the receipt of Government Grants are annually examined by H.M. Inspector of Schools, and a report of their condition forwarded to the Education Department. Board Schools are further visited and reported on by an Inspector specially employed by the Board itself for that purpose.] In 1879 there were 63 Board Schools in the whole of the Lambeth Division and 45,000 children on the rolls. In Battersea there are 68 taverns for the sale of spirits, etc., and 84 beer-houses, making a total of 152 public-houses. There are also 29 coffee-shops. A COFFEE PALACE IN OLD BATTERSEA.--On Saturday afternoon, Dec. 13, 1879, a coffee palace, belonging to the Coffee Taverns Company, Limited, was opened at Lombard Market, York-road, Battersea. This is the 22nd tavern of the kind opened by the Company, and carried on, in regard to the business, on the same principle as others. A well furnished room is provided for public meetings and other gatherings. LATCHMERE GROVE, which is almost encircled with Railway embankments, was noted for its piggeries. The lane once known as "Pig Hill," leading from Battersea Fields to Lavender Hill, is now a wide open road and forms the west boundary of the Shaftesbury Park Estate. Somewhere near the foot of "Pig Hill" were two places called in olden time "_Plague Spots_" where many bodies of persons who had died of the Plague were buried.