158 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
excellent Infirmary, which for want of a general hospital anywhere 
near, often opens its doors to accident cases and gives surgical 
help. 
Up the hill, on the other hand, a glimpse is had through the 
side roads of another huge building, a home of the healing art, 
where infectious cases, such as scarlet fever, diphtheria, etc., are 
dealt with. This Hospital is controlled by a centralized authority, 
viz., the Metropolitan Asylums Board. 
He will find that the streets are patrolled by police, who are 
not under either of the above authorities, while the water supply 
is managed by the newly-constituted Metropolitan Water Board. 
The parks and open spaces are most of them maintained by the 
London County Council, but some by the Borough Council, and 
the schools, as perhaps everybody knows, are now in the hands of 
the County Council. 
A stranger to London government would naturally ask how 
it is that there are so many authorities working, to a large extent, 
over the same area, but not related to one another, or under any 
organized control. 
A Century AGo. 
Going back a century we find that Lewisham, though a large 
parish in acreage, was inhabited in 1801 by only 4,007 persons, 
who lived in 686 houses. It covered 5,774 acres, with a circum- 
ference of 16 to 17 miles, and it was entirely severed from London 
by stretches of country very sparsely inhabited. Its government 
was of a simple kind, which had taken its rise, nobody knows how, 
like that of most country places. There was a Vestry, that is to 
say, an assembly of the whole parish, which met in the vestry or 
other accessible place; there were Justices of the Peace of the 
County having jurisdiction in this area, who, amongst other 
powers, appointed the Overseers; and there was the Lord of the 
Manor, possessing considerable manorial rights, who presided 
over the Court Leet. All the work of local government was 
done by these three authorities. Broadly one may say that the 
poor were provided for by the Overseers; the management of the 
land and the business of the parish were conducted by the Lord of 
the Manor and the Court Leet, who also administered justice in 
minor matters; and the Justices of the Peace, who appointed the 
Overseers, were administrators of justice in the area, and had 
considerable powers of control as well. The Justices of the Peace, 
for instance, suppressed the Sydenham Fair in 1766, declaring it to 
be a public nuisance. 
The Court Leet still retains many of its old powers, though it 
-seldom exercises them, for while it even now has authority to fine 
persons for certain light offences, the amount being limited to one 
penny or some such trifling sum, it would not be worth while to 
collect it. The Pound, still to be seen in the main road, and now 
seldom used, is controlled by the Lord of the Manor. 
