During some portion of the year the supply was scarce. The Company, when applied to for an explanation, attributed the scarcity to the refusal of a “sister Vestry” to allow the roads in their parish to be broken up for the purpose of laying down a larger main from the works at Horseferry Road, to supplement the supply from the Kensal Works, which are inadequate for the large district hitherto dependent on that source. I am not without hope that when the new 24-inch main is completed some of the causes of dissatisfaction to which I have adverted may be removed, and that a sufficient and well-regulated pressure, with a full supply of gas, will be obtained. The dissatisfaction with the gas led your Vestry to adopt a curious experiment during the current year, viz., that of burning mineral oil with the Silber light in a certain number of street lamps in the Kensington Road. I offer no opinion at present on the comparative value of the two sources of light; but I may mention the fact already well known, and referred to in my monthly reports, that the lighting of the streets in this parish is very unsatisfactory, inasmuch as we are still using burners adapted to consume three feet per hour, as in the days of cannel gas, whereas 4½ feet burners, at the least, should be employed. A suggestion has been made that the average meter system should be adopted in this parish, and it has my cordial approval—already expressed in my monthly reports—as it is only fair and proper that public bodies should pay for the gas they consume and no more. The average meter system has been adopted in the parishes of Paddington and St. Pancras. It has given entire satisfaction, and in a very short space of time the first cost of applying the meters to every twelfth lamp will have been defrayed by the saving in expenditure on gas. In Paddington the Vestry have undertaken all the necessary work of lighting and repairing the lamps. The gas has been burned for a somewhat shorter average period nightly, and a further large saving in expenditure has thus been effected. With reference to the cost of gas in this parish, I may be permitted to mention that during the year the revenue of the Company was many thousand pounds more than necessary to pay the ten per cent. dividend—which, in fact, might have been paid without the increase in the price of the gas, sanctioned by the Commissioners appointed by the Board of Trade, in the month of January. If, however, the price had not been raised during 1874, it is probable that the price charged in 1873 would have been maintained. But, in the face of the enormous over-taxation of gas consumers in 1874, and the reduced cost of coal, the Company could not apply to the Board of Trade for a revision of the price in 1875, the result being that the charge reverted on the 1st of January to the Parliamentary price of three shillings and ninepence per 1,000 cubic feet. * * * * *