=The Drainage Board= is a body composed in part of representatives elected by the Town Council, and in part of representatives elected by the Local Boards of districts adjoining the Borough. There are twenty-two members of this Board, two of them, the Mayor of Birmingham, and the Chairman of the Aston Manor Local Board being ex-officio, and the others being elected in the following proportions: Birmingham Town Council eleven; one each from the Local Boards of Aston Manor, Balsall Heath, Handsworth, Harborne, Saltley, and Smethwick; and one each (elected by the respective Boards of Guardians) for Aston Rural District and Sutton Coldfield, King’s Norton and Northfield, and Perry Barr. The Board has charge of the sewage from the districts above named, extending over an area of 45,000 acres. The whole of the sewers are made to converge to a common outlet at Saltley, where the sewage is received into tanks, and is then purified, first by precipitation, and next by passing it through the land of the sewage farm, the effluent water, thus rendered clear and harmless, being poured into the rivers Cole and Tame. The sludge remaining in the sewage tanks is dug into the land. For the purposes of sewage treatment the Drainage Board has acquired about 1,200 acres of land in the Tame Valley. The Board has borrowing powers, exercised to the extent of £400,000 for the acquisition of land and the execution of works; and it has also rating powers for the payment of interest and repayment of capital, and for current expenditure. These powers are exercised by serving precepts upon the several local authorities included in the Drainage area, in proportion to the number of their rated tenements. =The Boards of Guardians= have charge of the poor law administration of the Borough. There are three parishes in the Borough, namely, Birmingham, Edgbaston, and part of Aston. The parish of Birmingham is separately administered by a Board of Guardians, originally constituted under a Local Act of 23 Geo. III. (1782) modified by a local Act of 1 and 2 Wm. IV. (1831) and further modified by “orders” of the Poor Law Board, and the Local Government Board; the last of these was issued in 1882. The number of Guardians for the parish is 60, and the twelve overseers (the rating authority for poor law purposes) also have seats on the Board. The parish of Edgbaston is wholly in the Borough, but it forms part of the King’s Norton Union, and as to the poor law is governed by the Guardians of that Union. The parish of Aston is only partially within the Borough; it is administered by the Guardians of Aston Union. Edgbaston and Aston parochial affairs are governed under the general poor law Acts, there being no local Act for either parish. =The School Board=, which consists of fifteen members, was first elected in November, 1870, under the Elementary Education Act passed in that year. It has charge of the Board Schools throughout the Borough.