• ON THE LOCAL TAXATION OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN, 319 been paid, and that by a credit for manufactured articles, which, however, appear to have been fairly valued; the second Sir Charles says he has not paid, in consequence, as he states, of some over charges, which had not been corrected; and the third not having been fur- nished as required, he states, was the only reason of its not having been paid. & Supposing, however, these accounts to have been kept with the° utmost accuracy, so that the public could not lose, in point of money, by the system above described, we think it extremely objectionable, and that it should upon no account be permitted to continue. The first general observation that occurs is, that these accounts never came before the board; this system of dealing does not appear to have been carried on with the sanction, or even with the knowledge of the board, for although an entry of the first of these accounts appears on the books of the board, it was made by the treasurer, at the instance of Sir Charles, but without the privity or direction of the board; there was nothing, therefore, to ensure the accuracy or fairness of the accounts, but the fidelity of the two inferior officers who kept the account, and the superior against whom it was kept, upon which alone they should never depend. This system also led directly to a breach of all the useful checks established by the board, for the prevention of fraud in its subordinate officers. With respect to the workmen, this appears from the statement already made ; the return of their employment were necessarily on the face of them incorrect; they were returned as working for the board, at times when they were working for Sir Charles; and as to the materials, the quarterly returns to the board merely stated, so much " consumed," and this head included what has been used by Sir Charles, as well as by the public, without any distinction; so that by them the officer making the return was discharged, and there was nothing to direct the attention of the board to what had been furnished to Sir Charles, or to the fact that such a practice existed. Indeed this instance may also serve to show, that these returns are in form much too general for any useful purpose; another observation which we feel it our duty to make is, that these private accounts never appeared in those furnished to the commissioners of imprest accounts, and Sir Charles never was returned in them, as a debtor to the establishment, which should have been done, in pursuance of the Act of Parliament. The officer who prepared the board account, stated to us the reason of this omission to have been, that he did know of the existence of any such debt, which was the inevitable consequence of the system pursued; and we cannot avoid observing, that Sir Charles him- self was a commissioner at the time of making up and passing the accounts closed on the 5th January 1821. The system was further objectionable in another point of view; the establishment of the board was not greater than was requisite for its own purposes, and it frequently happened that they had to employ occasional workmen; the interference of Sir Charles, therefore, with the labourers and artificers, must have naturally obstructed and delayed the public works, and of this consequence there is the clearest evidence, particularly in the smiths department, both as to the effect generally, and as to particular instances, when they were taken off from urgent business for the board, to some work for Sir Charles's private use. We also think the example set to the inferior officers extremely mischievous, and which must have necessarily weakened Sir Charles's proper authority over them, either as super- visor or commissioner, in case of their attempting to derive similar advantages from their respective situations. However, in the preceding observations, which are founded upon general, but, as we conceive, wholesome and necessary principles, we do not mean to impute any deliberately corrupt motive to Sir Charles Coote; on the contrary, we think it was his intention to have indemnified the public for every benefit he received; but it was a practice leading to such mischievous consequences, that no indemnity would be a compensation. The next subject of consideration is, the use of the horses and carts of the board, with the consequent employment of the carters who attended them. It has been already stated, that Sir Charles has been in the habit of using the horses, carts and carters of the establishment, within the last three years, for all purposes that he found convenient, and sometimes before their regular working hours in the morning; of this work no account whatever has been kept, except in the instance of a single carter, of the name of Armstrong, who appears to have been employed by Sir Charles for a continuance of twenty days at one time, and forty at another, for both which periods he has been charged in one of the accounts above alluded to; but no account appears to have been kept of the employment of the carters for lesser periods, nor of the horses in any instance. The answer given by Sir Charles in justification of his conduct, in reference to this charge is, that his own horses have been frequently employed by the board at public works, and that in this way he made full compensation for any use he made of the horses of the establishment; even supposing this to be in principle an answer to the charge, it is impossible, from the circumstance of there having been no account kept of the time Sir Charles used the board horses, for us to say with precision whether he has made an adequate return. It appears that his horses worked for the board altogether, within six years, about twenty months. What proportion this bore to the time he used the board horses, we cannot say, for the reasons above stated; but supposing it to have considerably exceeded the time he used the board horses, ( which, if we were to form a conjecture, we should think was the case,) it is to be observed, that Sir Charles's horses were kept at the public stables, while they were so used; and therefore, for any given period of time, for which compensation in work was to be made in this way, the public was at the expense of double forage. The 549- 4B board