Since the abolition of the coal and wine dues in 1889, the whole of which had been devoted to carrying out improvements, erecting public buildings, and freeing bridges, in and near the metropolis,[840] the work of the Corporation, as well as of the London County Council (the successor to the Metropolitan Board of Works), in this direction has been sorely crippled. It was popularly supposed that the coal dues affected the price of coal and gas, and that as soon as the dues were abolished the price of these commodities would at once go down. The result has proved to be far otherwise. An income of more than half a million sterling, produced in such a way as to afford the minimum of burden to the taxpayer, and expended in such a way as to produce the maximum of benefit to the whole of the metropolis, has been lost to the City and the London County Council, whilst the consumer not only pays the same price as before for his coal and gas (the middle-man pocketing the tax), but finds himself saddled with an increased rate. [Sidenote: The City as Port sanitary authority.] One more remark and we have done. As conservators of the river Thames, the Corporation did much to improve its navigation, but in 1857 the conservancy was taken away from the City and became vested in a board. In 1872, however, the Corporation became the sanitary authority of the Port of London under somewhat remarkable circumstances. When the Public Health Bill of that year was framed, the Local Government Board long hesitated as to whom the duty of acting as the sanitary authority of the Port of London should be committed. At the last moment the Corporation stept in and volunteered to undertake the duty free of expense. The government readily accepted the offer, and to this patriotic act on the part of the municipality as well as to the energy of its executive officers, it is largely due that this vast metropolis enjoys comparative immunity from cholera and zymotic diseases and that the city itself, besides being the best paved and the best lighted, is also the most healthy city in the civilised world. END OF VOL III. FOOTNOTES: [789] Journal 72, fo. 70. [790] Journal 101, fos. 174-177, 180. [791] Journal 102, fos. 152-153. [792] Journal 104, fos. 196b-198b. Journal 106, fos. 236-237, 239b-241b. [793] Journal 102, fos. 377-377b. [794] Journal 102, fos. 376-376b. [795] Journal 104, fo. 201. Repertory 234, fo. 743. [796] Common Hall Book, No. 10, fos. 274-280, 283-284. [797] Journal 104, fos. 321-322, 323. [798] _Id._, fos. 364b-366. [799] Repertory 235, fo. 13. [800] Journal 104, fo. 374. [801] The petition to the commons was presented on the 16th Nov.--the day that the Duke of Wellington resigned; that to the lords on the 25th.--Journal House of Commons, lxxxvi, pt. 1, 87; Journal House of Lords, lxiii, 128. [802] Journal 105, fo. 133. [803] Common Hall Book, No. 10, fos. 295-299. [804] Journal 105, fos. 258-259b.