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29 We believe that it is not unjust in a case where a man pays his taxes year after year without stopping to calculate or ask the amount for which he is assessed, and that, too, where the respective taxes on real estate and personal property are given separately, for the town to follow the practice of a court of equity, which refuses to relieve against wrongs that have arisen through a failure to exer- cise ordinary and reasonable diligence. A majority of the committee, therefore, thinks that if the town shall refund one-half of said total excess of $866.73 or $433.37 which is nearly $100 more than the amount paid by Mr. Wetherbee on the note since the ' final payment thereon in the summer of 1890, ample jus- tice will have been done. We recommend that he be paid the sum of $433.37 in full of all claims against the town in respect to alleged over- payment of taxes. DANIEL F. HUTCHINSON, Majority ROBERT P. CLAPP,.Committee. of the Committee. Lexington, March 7, 1898. I dissent from the concluding portion of the foregoing report, and recommend that the amount be $866.73, be refunded, believing it simple justice to do so. H. E. HOLT. And after some discussion it was Voted, That the majority report be accepted and its recom- mendations be adopted and the sura of four hundred and thirty-three and u0 ($433.37) dollars be appropriated and assessed for the purpose. Voted, That the committee be discharged. 30 ART. 23. To provide for carrying on the work of preserving and printing the parish and town records and appropriate money therefor. Mr. R. P. Clapp read the following report :— LEXINGTON, — LEXINGTON, March 7, 1898. 7o the gown of Lexington : —Your committee having in charge the matter of preserving the early parish and town records and the possible printing thereof respectfully sub- mits the following report : Since its first report (see pp. 19-23 of the Town Report for the year 1897) the committee has caused to be prepared ready for the printer, manuscript embracing all recorded births, marriages and deaths in the Cambridge Farms pre- cinct and town of Lexington from the beginning down to and including the year 1853. The compiling has been done by Mr. N. A. Sparhawk, whose faithful and accurate work, not confined to our own volumes but extended to a search in sundry old records at Cambridge as well, will be appreciated. by all who become familiar with it. To publish this manuscript in a form similar to that adopted by the city of Woburn, which seems on the whole best suited to our.needs and resources, will cost, as nearly as we can judge, about $600 for one thousand bound copies. This estimate contemplates a volume of from 250 to 275. pages, with a simple but strong cloth binding. Having in viewLthe permanent usefulness of the work and. the probable demand foi it in years to come, the committee would recommend ,that it,„be printed from electrotype plates,, at a cost of about $100 in excess of what the price would otherwise be. The qustion has arisen whether the town would think it wise to have the compilation extended so as to embrace the