coppers, forty shillings in silver; any amount in gold or Bank of England notes, except at the bank or its branches.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ROYAL REVENUE.

Of what different kinds is the sovereign's revenue?

It is either (i.) ordinary, or (ii.) extraordinary; and the ordinary is (1) ecclesiastical, and (2) temporal.

What does the sovereign's ecclesiastical revenue consist of?

(i.) The custody of temporalities of vacant bishoprics.
(ii.) The first fruits and tenths of benefices.

What does the sovereign's ordinary temporal revenue consist of?
(i.) The rents and profits of the demesne lands of the
Crown.

(ii.) The hereditary excise, being part of the consideration for the purchase of the sovereign's feodal profits, and the prerogatives of purveyance and pre-emption.

(iii.) An excise duty on all beer and ale and other liquors sold in the kingdom, being the residue of the same consideration.

(iv.) The profits arising from forests.

(v.) From the Courts of Justice.

(vi.) The Royal Fish, wrecks, treasure trove, waifs and estrays, including in the word wreck under certain circumstances jetsam, flotsam and ligan.

(vii.) The royal mines.

(viii. and ix.) Profits arising from escheats, and the custody of idiots.

What did the sovereign's extraordinary revenue formerly consist of?

(i.) Aids; (ii.) subsidies, and (iii.) supplies, now arrived at by taxation, and granted by the Commons in Parliament.

What are the taxes now imposed by law?

(i.) The land tax in the place of the subsidies on persons in respect of property by tenths or fifteenths. It is raised by charging a particular sum upon each county in pursuance of the valuation of 1692, which sum is again assessed and raised upon individuals by Commissioners; it is perpetual and liable to redemption.

(ii.) The customs, or the tonnage, or poundage of all merchandise exported or imported. The duties on exports were said to arise because the sovereign (1) gave the subject leave to go out of the country and take his goods, and (2) because he had to keep up the ports, &c., and protect the merchant from pirates.

(iii.) The excise duty or inland imposition on a great variety of commodities.

(iv.) The post office or duty for carriage of letters.

(v.) The stamp duty on paper and parchment, documents, &c. (vi.) The duties upon offices and pensions.

It must be remembered that all the above are permanent taxes.

Give a short statement of the origin of the land-tax, mentioning some of the methods of rating property for which it has been substituted?

The origin of it was scutage or escuage, derived from the Latin word scutagium, which was the pecuniary assessment into which the inconvenient personal service in chivalry was at length gradually changed. It has been substituted for the antient method of rating persons in respect of property by tenths or fifteenths, subsidies on land, hydages, scutages, talliages.

What is the Income Tax?

It is a tax arising from yearly profits, arising from property, professions, trades, and offices.

It was re-imposed by Sir Robert Peel in 1842 for three years, and has been continued (varying in amount) by numerous statutes, of which the last is 31 & 32 Vict. cc. 2 & 28.

For what purpose is this revenue applied?

Part of it is applied to pay the interest of the national debt till the principal is discharged by Parliament, which consists of a debt in part funded, and in part unfunded, the former secured on the public funds, and the latter on exchequer bills and bonds.

What were the produce of these several taxes ?

Originally separate and specific funds to answer specific loans upon their respective credits which were formerly consolidated by Parliament into three principal funds: (i.) the aggregate; (ii.) the general; and (iii.) the South Sea Funds; and these funds were again in 1787 all included in one called the Consolidated Funds, since combined with that of Ireland, forming the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

What becomes of any surplus of the Fund?

After paying the interest on the national debt it is carried to the credit of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National

Debt; and unless otherwise appropriated by Parliament, is annually to be applied towards that object, assuming it be not required to make up any deficiencies in the civil list, which is the immediate and proper revenue of the Crown, settled by Parliament on the sovereign's accession, for defraying the charges of civil government,

Of what does the military state consist?

(i.) Of the militia of each county raised by voluntary enlistment for a period not exceeding six years, and officered by gentlemen commissioned by the Crown.

(ii.) The Yeomanry cavalry, and the Volunteer rifles, and Artillery Corps; and

(iii.) The disciplined regular troops of the Kingdom kept on foot from year to year by Parliament, and governed by martial law or arbitrary articles of war formed at the pleasure of the Crown.

What does the maritime state consist of?

The officers, seamen, and marines of the British Navy, who are by express and permanent laws established by Act of Parliament, the last of which is 29 & 30 Vict. c. 109 (The Navy Discipline Act, 1866).

CHAPTER IX.

THE NOBILITY AND OTHER RANKS.

How may the civic state be divided?

Into (i.) the nobility; (ii.) the commonalty.

Who are included under the nobility, and how are the titles created?

(i.) Dukes; (ii.) marquesses; (iii.) earls; (iv.) viscounts; (v.) barons. They are created either by writ, that is, by summons to Parliament, or by letters patent from the sovereign, that is, by royal grant, and they enjoy many privileges exclusive of the senatorial capacity.

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Into what degrees are the commonalty divided?

(i.) Knights of the Garter; (ii.) Knights Banneret; (iii.) Baronets; (iv.) Knights of the Bath; (v.) Knights Bachelors; (vi.) esquires; (vii.) gentlemen; (viii.) tradesmen, artificers, and labourers.

CHAPTER X.

MAGISTRATES, ETC.

Who are the subordinate magistrates of the most general use and authority?

(i.) Sheriffs; (ii.) coroners; (iii.) justices of the peace; (iv.) constables.

Give a brief statement of the history of the office of sheriff, and their powers and duties?

He is an officer of very great antiquity, his name being derived from two Saxon words meaning the reeve, bailiff or officer of the shire. He is called in Latin vice comes, as being the deputy of the Earl or comes, to whom the custody of the shire is said to have been committed at the first division of this kingdom into counties, but now the sheriff does all the King's business in the county, and is entirely independent of the Earl, the Crown committing custodiam comitatus to the sheriff and to him alone. Sheriff's were formerly chosen by the inhabitants of the county, but now, and since the reign indeed of Henry VI., by the sovereign. His office lasts for one year. He is keeper of the county, with certain judicial powers; he is conservator of the sovereign's peace, a ministerial officer, and a bailiff of the Crown.

Describe the office of coroner, and what are their duties.

They are permanent officers of the Crown in each county, elected by the freeholders-and by 7 & 8 Vict. c. 92, they may be appointed for districts within counties-whose office it is to make inquiry concerning the death of the King's subjects super visum corporis, and certain revenues of the Crown, and also in particular cases to supply the office of sheriff.

Describe the office of justice of the peace and its duties.

Justices of the peace are officers appointed by the Crown to administer justice within the realm, usually selected on the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and appointed by special commission under the Great Seal jointly and severally

to keep the peace in particular, and any two or more of them to inquire of and determine felonies and other misdemeanours. They act gratuitously, receiving no salary or fees.

Mention briefly the duties of the justice.

(i.) To conserve the peace.

(ii.) Any two of them have power to determine felonies and
other offences within their jurisdiction at quarter
sessions.

(iii.) Licensing alehouses or appointing overseers of the poor
or surveyors of the highways at special sessions.
(iv.) Trying in a summary way at petty sessions offences
within their jurisdiction by particular statutes.

What is the office and duty of a constable?

They are of two sorts: (i.) high constables; (ii.) petty constables. The former are appointed at courts leet, or by justices at special sessions, under 7 & 8 Vict. c. 37, s. 8. Their general duties are to keep the Queen's peace within the hundred, and that of the petty constables within the parish or township, and the latter have also to serve summonses and execute warrants, &c., but the duties have been considerably altered by modern statutes constituting a public force or county constabulary.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES.

What do the clergy consist of?

All persons in holy orders or ecclesiastical offices, and as thus defined consist of (i.) archbishops and bishops; (ii.) deans and chapters; (iii.) archdeacons; (iv.) rural deans; (v.) parsons and vicars, to whom there are requisite holy orders, presentations, institution and induction; (vi.) curates.

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What is the difference between a rector" and a "vicar," and who are "lay impropriators" ?

A "rector" is a person in holy orders who has the cure of souls in a parish, with the exclusive right to the freehold of the parsonagehouse, the glebe, the tithes, and all the emoluments.

A "vicar" is a person in holy orders who has the cure of souls, with only a part of the emoluments. A lay "impropriator" is a person not being in holy orders, in whom is vested the appropriation