_To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled_. The petition of the Vestry of the Parish of Chelsea, in the County of Middlesex, SHEWETH, 1. That a Bill has been introduced into your honourable House, intituled, “A Bill to Amend the Law relating to Parochial Assessments in England.” 2. That your Petitioners view with much alarm many of the provisions of the said Bill. 3. That your Petitioners humbly submit that the present law on the subject is based upon sound principles, and has in the main been found to be efficient in its operation. 4. That your Petitioners believe that the present law gives all necessary protection to those who suffer from the evils resulting from unjust and unequal assessments. 5. That the present assessors, namely the Board of Guardians of the Poor of this Parish, are in consequence of their appointment by the parishioners, directly amenable to the voice of public opinion. 6. That by the present Bill it is proposed, that in by far the greater number of cases, the assessors should be appointed for life, by, and from amongst the Crown appointed Magistrates of the County. 7. That your Petitioners believe that the levying and the disbursing of County Rates by a Board wholly irresponsible to the ratepayers, is a source of general dissatisfaction throughout the country, dissatisfaction which will be greatly increased when the large additional powers contemplated in the Bill are conferred upon the Board. 8. That the right at present possessed by the ratepayers of appeal to the General Quarter Sessions against the original assessment, is by the said Bill taken away, except in the few cases in which some principle of rating may be involved. 9. That the evils which it is alleged have arisen under the present law, may in the opinion of your Petitioners, be remedied by a far less cumbrous and costly machinery than that proposed by the said Bill. 10. That the said Bill will, if it pass into law, give unprecedented and unconstitutional powers to the Assessment Boards created under it. 11. Your Petitioners, for the foregoing reasons therefore, humbly pray that the said Bill may not pass into law. CHAS. LAHEE, Vestry Clerk. Given under the common seal of the said Vestry, his twelfth day of March, 1861. APPENDIX No. 28. HOUSES AND POPULATION in Superintendent Registrar’s District, on March 31st, 1851, and on April 8th, 1861. CHELSEA.