'RATTLE HIS BONES.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 131, 7 August 1895, Page 3

'RATTLE HIS BONES.

Scene: The Board-room of the Cardiff Guardians. Speaker: Mr Boavan, a guardian :—' Mr Beavan said the contractor undertook to do a certain business for 17s 6d a case, and lie well understood that he might use a spring-cart for the purpose. The Board never objected.' The 'certain business ' thus delicately alluded to was simply the burial of Cardiff paupers, and 17s Gd ' a case ' was the price to be paid. The difficulty was, however, that the contractor rattled the bones of his cases over the stones in a spring-cart instead of a hearse, and as another guardian said, ' ho did not think that he or Mr Beaven would care, if they knew of it, to be con-vej-ed to the cemetery in a spring cart.' (Laughter). It came out in the course of discussion that another contractor had offered to do the work for 16s, with a hearse thrown in. This gave the requisite economic sanction. ' If,' as a rev. guardian puts it, ' that tenderer could do the work for Is 6d a case less than it is now being done for, and furnish a hearse, the present contractor should certainly do so.' A London paper remarks that this.incident belongs to the proofs that the English are a commercial people.