A "Wellwisher," certainly not to the _Town of Dudley_, has
thought proper to insult you by the publication of a scurrilous
Handbill, reflecting upon the Gentlemen retiring during the
present year from office in your Local Board of Health. A more
disgraceful production, and one more calculated to serve purely
party purposes at the expense of truth, it has seldom been my
lot to read. The Gentlemen there alluded to have exercised no
deception--have been guilty of no trickery. They have made
no professions which have not been faithfully carried out in
practice. As to recklessness and extravagance compare their
amount of Assessment and Rates with those of the Gentlemen
"Wellwisher" so magniloquently recommends to your notice;
WHILST THE FORMER REPRESENT PROPERTY PAYING UPWARDS OF £650 PER
RATE, THE LATTER, OR MR. BADGER'S NOMINEES, PAY ONLY £57--the
best answer to any assertion as to their expending so much
money of their own for the mere pleasure of spending yours.
"Wellwisher" then appeals to the Ratepayers of Freebodies,
Netherton, Woodside, and Holly Hall, evidently wishing
to excite a hostile feeling between the Ratepayers of the
districts and the Town itself. He asks "what has been done to
our streets and thoroughfares?" Why, kept in as good repair
and as well attended to as during the supremacy of his friends
upon the old Highway Board; but doubtless "Wellwisher" wishes
sufficiently well to the Tradesmen and "Shopkeepers" as to
desire them not only to keep in repair the "streets, roads,
and thoroughfares," but also to _make_ them, for the benefit
of those who have sold and bought land at a great profit, and
built houses in these localities, a thing always refused by the
Highway Board as well as the Board of Health.
Beyond this, why does not "Wellwisher" tell you what his
immaculate saving friends are endeavouring to do at the present
moment, _viz._--to throw the expenses of the repairs of the
roads generally upon the rates, and which if effected will
go far to double the payments upon the Town itself. This has
already in part been done,--the Turnpike Commissioners have
refused to repair (which has always before been done by them)
that part of the street leading to Wolverhampton, situate
between St. James's Church and the Turnpike Gate, and without
any notice having been given to the Board or their Surveyor,
consequently this part of your streets has not been attended to
or cleansed for many weeks. If it be not for mere "deception
and trickery," why does "Wellwisher" wish you to suppose that
the Rates levied by the Local Board of Health are something
new, and that without its establishment such payments would
not have been required, whilst it admits of easy proof that
the Rates paid by you during the past three years, under the
management of the Board, have been considerably less than those
formerly levied by the Town Commissioners and Highway Board.
As to the salaries paid to the various officers, why does not
"Wellwisher" [?] go back to the palmy days of the old Town Act
Commissioners and Highway Board, and tell us of the payments
made in secret in those times? why does he not refer to the
appointment of the salary of the Clerk to the Guardians, which
was fixed, in spite of the Poor Law Board, at a higher amount
than they thought necessary? why does he not refer to the _job_
as to the appointment of the Relieving Officer as Master of
the Dudley Workhouse?--because, forsooth, he happened to be a
relative of one of those who prates most and pays least. "The
labourer is worthy of his hire," but if their salaries be too
high, let their work be ascertained and paid for accordingly;
but far better a good round sum at once, which is known to all,
than allow an officer to eke it out by summonses and expenses,
obtained from poor people before the magistrates.
He talks about sewerage, and the probability of its being
carried into effect, estimating its amount at an extravagant
rate. Will "Wellwisher" have the hardihood to assert that
drainage is not wanted, when it is a well-known fact that, with
great natural facilities, Dudley is one of the worst seweraged
towns in the whole kingdom; that there is not a drain in any
street sufficient to take away the water from the various
cellars and lower parts of the houses; and to this fact alone
is it to be attributed its great and extraordinary mortality,
the average duration of life here being only 19 years: or would
he rather that these things should exist than that any attempt
should be made to improve them. "Wellwisher" then pathetically
alludes to the Poor Man's Pigs, very probably not only having
a great sympathy for them, but also for the mire in which they
wallow; but will those whose feelings he wishes to excite,
believe that very many of his professing friends actually
signed a memorial to the Board, calling strongly for the
removal of Pigs from the entire of the Town District, and which
was objected to by some of those he so harshly anathematizes.
Doubtless, too, he approves of some of those high in authority
keeping pigs in such a condition that the filth from their
styes should drain into his neighbour's sitting or bed room.
"Wellwisher" next endeavours to enlist the sympathies of
others by allusion to the Rating of Tenements' Act, falsely
asserting that those who were in favour of its introduction
were themselves exempt from any effect of its operation. "Let
the galled jade wince!" Its promoters supported it from just
and proper motives, and not from the wish that their smaller
dwellings should be drained and cleansed at the expense of
other people.
FELLOW RATEPAYERS.--"Wellwisher's" publication is nothing more
than an impudent attempt to set Town against Country, and
Country against Town, in order to relieve the Country part of
the District of their fair share of the Rates at the expense of
the heavily taxed Ratepayers of the Town. It is a disgraceful
attack upon individuals who have devoted much valuable time
to serve the Town, and who had the "unblushing effrontery"
to endeavour to do right,--who have not sought either to do
their fellow ratepayers "Brown," or "Badger" them, but to act
independently and faithfully for their best interests, and
which time alone will fully prove. If you still wish to have
men to represent you, who are disposed to continue to act thus,
do not be dictated to by Mr. Badger, but Vote for
R. SMITH, ESQ.
S. D. FEREDAY, ESQ.
REV. DR. BROWNE.
MR. ELLIOTT HOLLIER.
" W. C. WOOD.
" G. J. ENGLAND.
I am, Fellow Ratepayers,
YOUR WELLWISHER, AND ALSO A LOVER OF TRUTH.
_Dudley, March 1856._
May 27th, 1856. After twelve days trial in London, William Palmer,
Surgeon, of Rugeley, Staffordshire, was found guilty of poisoning his
racing companion, Mr. J. P. Cook, at the Shrewsbury races. Palmer
poisoned poor Cook with strychnine for the purpose of robbing him of a
large sum of money which Cook had won at the races. Palmer was hanged
at Stafford Gaol for this dastardly offence on June 14th following;
the murderous wretch maintained the most callous indifference to all
around him to the last. He was well known in Dudley.
May 29th, 1856. This day was kept as a general holiday throughout
the country in commemoration of the Peace. Old Dudley Castle, which
had "braved the Battle and the Breeze" for upwards of 800 years, was
illuminated with a grand display of fireworks.
Died, August 19th, 1856, Thomas Badger, Esq., of the "Hill House,"
Dudley. This genial, but blunt and frank old gentleman, was one of
Dudley's worthiest sons; his familiar figure daily moving in our midst,
secured the esteem of all good people, and his quiet and unostentatious
benevolence has gladdened the hearts of widows and orphans, when
none were allowed to witness the tear of the giver. Mr. Badger (like
a great many more of our Dudley worthies) began life in very humble
circumstances, and rose step by step until he became Chief Magistrate
of this Borough. He was for a lengthened period (along with his
brother, Isaac Badger) very extensively engaged in the glass trade,
the nail trade, the coal trade, and iron trades of this district, and
it is not too much to say that Messrs. Badger Brothers at all times
exercised the most potent influence upon the industries of Dudley and
neighbourhood. As a large employer of labour, he was much respected by
all his workpeople, and a cordial feeling always existed between the
head of the firm and the numerous employes both in the ironworks and
collieries. In religion he was a sound Churchman, and in politics he
belonged to the Tory party, but Mr. Badger was not a rabid politician,
for he had the honour of once being requested to stand as a Candidate
for the Borough of Dudley, on Independent principles, but he declined
the honour. He was a most shrewd and active Magistrate for many years,
and as Mr. Badger lived through perilous times his decisions on the
Bench were always tempered with a wonderful insight into the human
character, accepting Mercy and Justice as his motto. His personal
friendships created a halo of kindly feeling and generous sentiment
amongst a large circle of personal friends and acquaintances, which
will be long remembered in Dudley, and his death, at the ripe old
age of 75 years, was universally regretted. A marble monument in St.
Edmund's Church records his numerous virtues.
Died, suddenly, August 23rd, 1856, Mr. Joseph Pitchfork, Master for
30 years of Baylies's School, Tower Street. Mr. Pitchfork was a man
of very deep and extensive intellectual acquirements, and a more
kind-hearted and genial soul never lived. Through his assiduity and
zeal, for he was a real lover of his work, his educational training
in Baylies's School has bequeathed to this town and locality some of
the foremost and most eminent commercial men in our midst, and it is
a source of great pleasure to the author of these lines to witness
and observe in his walk in life so many evidences of the estimable
teaching of the late Mr. Pitchfork. So soon as his lamentable death
became known, the following letter was issued, and a public meeting
was convened at Baylies's School Room, expressing condolence and
sympathy with Mrs. Pitchfork and her family. A Committee of upwards
of 60 gentlemen, many of them old pupils, was formed "for the purpose
of raising a fund in grateful recognition of his valuable services
rendered to the cause of education."
SARACEN'S HEAD INN, DUDLEY,
_August 24th, 1856_.