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Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2073, 26 August 1875, Page 3

Indebtedness of Mcnici?alities anp Tbusts in ENGLANp.-r-Jt appears from some statistics published in The Times

that the total indebtedness of the.local authorities throughout England is now £77,073,000, of which the Boroughs owe £30.441,000 the Harbour Trustees £19,773,000 the Metropolitan Board £12,766,000, the Urban Sanitary Commission £4,029,000, the counties '£2,965,000, the Poor-law Guardians £3,549 000, and the B.unal Boards and Drainage authorities the remainder. This debt is equal to eight months' rateable.value of the property pledged as security, and- shows a tendency to increase every year. Money appears to be obtainable by local authorities from private sources, with great.ease, at from 3f to 4|- per cent.; rind although only two local bodies—the trustees of Wark worth and Bridporfc Harbours—have failed to pay interest* still nothing appears to have happened to those two. It is, we confess, this easy borrowing power that we dread, when proposals are made for more popular municipal authorities, more especially as the work of sanitation and re-housing, the poor can scarcely be said to have begun. A medium borough, governed by philanthropists—say, for instance, Carlisle—might strangle itself with debts in less than ten years, and make all property valueless.

Singular Diffebence.—Call a girl a young witch and she is pleased; call an elderly* woman an old witch and her indignation knows no'bounds.