Second Part. SELF-GOVERNMENT SINCE THE MUNICIPAL CORPORATION ACT. CHAPTER I. COMPARISON OF THE OLD AND NEW SYSTEMS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. The County.-Justices of the Peace.-New Departments.-Appeal.-New Police. IN the modern organization the "county" is still the chief administrative district, the lord lieutenant and the sheriff having mainly retained their former functions; the latter, however, has almost entirely lost his jurisdiction in civil matters. The justices of the peace, so far as their criminal jurisdiction has not been curtailed, have retained their old official powers. Their power to levy rates has been increased in proportion to the increased exigencies of the internal administration. An assembly of the freeholders of the county is held as formerly, for the election of coroners and knights of the shire. On the other hand, within the county, unions and boards exist, based on a new principle of election, and mainly constituted according to classified electoral rights. These are principally the poor-law "unions," the local boards of health, the London general board of health, and corporate towns, now governed by councillors and aldermen duly elected. These new unions and boards are, for the most part, connected with the county only through the medium of the rates; the control of the president of the poor law board and the home secretary is of recent growth. They have power to issue regulations in matters relating to the poor and police. In all that concerns sanitary control an administrative, but not a judicial, right of appeal is permitted, but only to the home secretary. The inter ference of the central government with the administration of the local boards is sanctioned by enactment. The jurisdiction in towns has been mainly withdrawn from the local gentry; stipendiary magistrates being almost everywhere substituted. The towns are likewise controlled in the expenditure of their revenues. The police system is no longer dependent on the municipality, but is a government concern. A systematically organized police, controlled by the home secretary by means of "regulations," but which still remains directly subjected to the local boards, has been substituted for the old constabulary. Flagrant abuses have been removed in the town corporations; with much of the bad uprooted, a great deal that was good has been destroyed; much that is beneficial has been incorporated with a great deal that is crude; for instance, the growth of the "special" departments and the ultimate authority of the home secretary, which is generally regarded with disfavour. CHAPTER II. THE PARISH. Vill and Town identical with Parish.-The Parish a Temporal Association.-Maintains a Political Significance.-Parishioners.-The Vestry.-Select Vestry.Open Vestry.- General Vestries Act.-Sturges Bourne's Act.- Hobhouse's Act.-Churchwardens.-Church Rates.-Their Mode of Collection.-Churchrate System in its Decline.-Parishes "Spiritual."- Modern Importance of Parishes. THE original division into vills and towns is not merely administrative; it indicates the political grouping of the existing social communities, and is more ancient than the division into counties and hundreds. Vills and towns existed prior to the introduction of Christianity; when the latter spread abroad through the land, the divisions of the church communities naturally included the social and municipal divisions already existing. A parish accordingly became, as a rule, identical with the temporal community, tything, or town.* When the division into counties, hundreds, and tythings was effected, several towns and vills were grouped in one tything; many towns and vills have, however, from the very beginning possessed the distinctive character of a tything. As churches were established conformably with the exigencies of the respective localities, it often happened that one church was common to several villages. Even as larger towns embraced several tythings, so with the parishes, they were either identical with a town comprising a tything, or with a larger tything consisting of several small vills.† "A parish may comprise three villages," says Chief Justice Hale; "the parish A may, e.g., contain the villages A, B, C; this is especially the case when in each there are three several constables, but if the constable of A has supervision over the district of B, C, there is only a village or vill in the legal sense." In the north, on account of the sparse population, the parishes were of great extent and usually one and the same with a large township. Even at the present day, large localities like St. Pancras, *Toulmin Smith, 15, 16, 21, 24. Toulmin Smith, 120. + Ibid., 15. § Ibid., 34. Marylebone, and Paddington are undivided parishes; whereas there are more than seven hundred parishes* not possessing more than fifty inhabitants. The "parish" is not then merely the official district of a parson, but from time immemorial has been reputed likewise a "temporal" community: a division of the community into "spiritual" and "temporal" is withal greatly opposed to the spirit of simple expediency, which characterizes all Saxon institutions.§ This "temporal" character of the parish renders it therefore apparent why there are occasionally parishes possessing two parish churches. || The interdependence of the civil and the spiritual community in the parish has been recognized in express terms by 10 Anne, c. 20. If a new church be deemed necessary, the parish may be apportioned not only for "spiritual," but for civil purposes into as many sub-divisions as there are churches. Where two parish churches exist, this arises from the fact of the civil not having agreed to the sub-division of the "spiritual" community.¶ The "parish," either in conjunction with, or in addition to the social "village," has, accordingly, ever been the groundwork of local municipal administration in England; according as the municipal system declined the parish organization coincidently fell away. Yet never has a period existed when large districts, such as those comprised in many English parishes, were destitute of local administration; hence the parish has never entirely lost its civil character. By the common law every landowner or leaseholder in a parish is a parishioner; residence alone and not a mere payment of the levies of the parish conferring the rights.** Every parishioner has the right to appear at the vestry, and is subject to "scot and lot; that is, is bound to undertake whatever personal services are assigned to him by the community, and to bear his share in the rates imposed.†† Any one failing to acquit himself of his obligations is deprived of the advantages afforded by the local vestry. In its character as an ecclesiastical body the parish vestry from time immemorial has contributed to the repairs of the church, *Toulmin Smith, 35. + Gneist, i. 637. Blackstone says a parish is that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson, a vicar, or other minister, having care of souls therein. 1 Step. Bl. 116. § Toulmin Smith, 16. ** Ibid., 472, 178. and to other spiritual purposes by the medium of the church rate. Any one illegally excluded from the convention or meeting* of the parishioners had, during the middle ages, a remedy by way of indictment. The meeting took place on the Sunday, and was usually held in the sacristy or "vestry." vestry." The election of the parish functionaries, the levying of rates and the settlement of bye-laws were here conducted. The functionaries were originally civil officials. Lord Chief Baron Hale affirmed of churchwardens, "That they were lay corporations."+ They are now admittedly subjected to the supervision of the spiritual courts, whereas overseers of the poor have always been lay functionaries. The Reformation should be regarded as the main turning-point of self-government in the parish. The church, especially under the Stuarts, had become the domain of the upstart aristocracy, and was not favourably inclined to the democratic element which was rife among the parishioners. The increased parish burthens entailed by Elizabeth's poor law, and the disappearance of the small freeholders should further be taken into account. Since the canons of 1603 minor committees of the vestry had been selected, from which the clergy endeavoured to constitute an oligarchy amongst the parishioners. Spelman in his pamphlet "De Sepulturâ," published in the year 1641, mentions that these oligarchic usurpations had already endured thirty years, and characterized the new select vestries as the result of spiritual machinations.§ Custom, the decisions of the courts, and parliamentary enactments, rendered general a practice which was in harmony with the universal bias given to English society from the Stuart period. "General" and "open" vestries still continued for the election of the churchwardens and levying of church-rates. The whole body of the parishioners, as in former times, appeared at these vestries, having equal right of voting. By means of the select vestry, endeavours were made from the commencement of this century, to effect a reform of the laws affecting the poor, by first reforming the vestry itself. Two acts (58 Geo. III. c. 69, and 59 Geo. III. c. 85) were *Toulmin Smith, 51, 52. + Ibid., 81. Toulmin Smith, 238. § Ibid., 239. |