Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/239

 the incursions of the tide about 400 acres of marsh land, which has since by drainage and cultivation been converted into excellent pastures and productive fields. The entire line was leased, under acts of 1846, to the Lancashire and Yorkshire and London and North Western Railway companies, the former taking two thirds and the latter one third of the profits or losses. The terms agreed upon were a rent of £7 1s. 6d. per cent., and £1 15s. 4-1/2d. per share on a total capital of £668,000, until the close of 1854, when the payments were raised to £7 17s. 6d. per cent., and £1 19s. 3-1/2d. per share in perpetuity. In the month of July, 1846, the electric telegraph in connection with the Preston and Wyre Railway was introduced into the town, and as its first public act was the interception, at Kirkham, of a defaulting steamship passenger, who had neglected to pay her fare, it may be concluded that the inhabitants welcomed the ingenious invention as a valuable ally in the protection of their commercial interests, as well as a rapid and convenient mode of friendly intercommunion in cases of urgency.

The Improvement Act, for "paving, lighting, cleansing, and otherwise improving the town of Fleetwood and the neighbourhood thereof, and for establishing a market therein," came into operation on the 18th of June, 1842. Meetings were appointed to be held on the first Monday in every month, at which any male person was empowered to sit as a commissioner on producing evidence that he was either a resident within the limits prescribed by the act, and rated to the poor-rates of the township of Thornton for a local tenement of the annual value of £15, or possessed as owner or lessee or in the enjoyment of the rents and profits of a messuage, lands, or hereditaments, similarly situated and rated, for a term of not less than fifty years. In 1869 authority was obtained to repeal certain sections of the old act and adopt others from the Public Health Act of 1848, and the Local Government Act of 1858, the most important being that in future the Board of Commissioners should consist of twelve members only, having personally the same qualifications as before, but being elected by the ratepayers. The new regulations also ordained that one third of the commissioners should retire each year, and the vacancies be filled up by a general election. This act is still in force.

It was not possible that the claims of a place so happily situated