passed; the "General Vestries Act" and the supplementary act of the following year, providing that all meetings of the vestry should be announced three days previous to being held.* In the absence of the parson, rector, or vicar, a chairman should be appointed, only those belonging to the vestry being empowered to vote, the chairman to have a casting vote, and sign the minutes of the proceedings. They also contain provisions as to the right of voting, which is adjusted upon a certain scale, having relation to the amount in which the voter is assessed to the relief of the poor. Vestries otherwise constituted, whether by special act or custom, are not subject to its provisions. London and Southwark are likewise exempted from its operation.

"Sturges Bourne's Act" (59 Geo. III. c. 12), which introduced further reforms, was not to apply to places governed by special acts or customs, or to Wales. It allows the inhabitants of any parish to commit the management of its poor to a committee of the parishioners appointed for the purpose, and called a "select" vestry, to whose orders the overseers are bound to conform; such select vestry to consist of from five to twenty substantial housekeepers or occupiers, elected by the vestry at large, and also of the parson, churchwardens, and overseers.

The act passed under William IV. (1 and 2 Will. IV. c. 60), Hobhouse's Act, applies to those places only where special statutes and customs do not otherwise provide; where such older organizations exist, the mode of election on the nomination of vestrymen is modified. It has no application to parishes not forming part of a city or town, and not having more than 800 rate-payers; and the adoption of its arrangements is in no case compulsory, no parish being subject to them, unless it voluntarily consent to place itself under the act. In larger parishes, on motion of fifty householders, it may be put to the vote whether this act shall be adopted. Under this act the select vestries, according to the size of the locality, comprise from twelve to one hundred and twenty members; the local parson (and, where there are several parsons, one of them) and the churchwardens are ex officio members. The sittings of the vestry are not to be held in the church. Besides the vestrymen, five auditors of accounts are annually elected; the functions of a vestryman cannot be united with those of auditor; the election in

*Burns, i. 415.

either case takes place by ballot, one-third of the vestrymen annually resign office, their proceedings are recorded in a book open to the inspection of all the ratepayers, but they are not otherwise public. This act has only been adopted in a few localities, but a classification of electors by the General Vestries' Act, and the mechanism of election by Hobhouse's Act have become regulative for all the later vestry organizations.

Since the introduction of the modern legislation for the poor, the spiritual, and civil character of the parish run sometimes parallel, but occasionally the two elements intermingle.

The parson, rector, or vicar, is still the chairman of the open vestry, which, in many places, likewise elects the churchwardens. The latter, since the decline of their civil functions in the vestry, have retained scarcely anything but spiritual functions. Yet, consistently with the spirit of old English law, the office of churchwarden should be regarded as of a purely civil nature, for there is no law excluding even a Jew from the office. Jews have actually been summoned by the vestry to undertake the functions.* Spiritually considered, the duty of the churchwardens is to keep the fabric in good repair, and to take care of the goods belonging to the church; such as the organ, bells, and parish books; to enforce proper and orderly behaviour within the church and churchyard. They are bound to see that the Sunday is kept holy; and are entrusted with the making collections, and expenditure of the church-rates. It is also part of their office, unless other persons are appointed by the ordinary, to have the care of the benefice during its vacancy, or while it is under sequestration for the debts of the incumbent. If churchwardens waste the goods of the church, or be guilty of other misbehaviour, they are liable to removal. They are taken in favour of the church, to be, for some purposes, a kind of corporation at the common law; that is, they are enabled by that name to have a property in goods and chattels, and to bring actions for them, for the use and profit of the parish.† The spiritual courts can compel them to produce their accounts, but are not empowered to examine the same.

They are sometimes appointed by the minister, sometimes by the parish in vestry assembled, sometimes by both together, as custom directs. But where there is no custom, the election must

* Burns, i. 410.

+ Step. Bl. vol. iv. 40, 41.

be according to the canons, which direct that they shall be chosen by joint consent of the minister and the parishioners, if it may be, but if they cannot agree, then the minister is to choose one and the parishioners another. They are to be chosen annually in Easter week, and are generally two in number; when chosen they are obliged to serve, and are sworn to execute the office faithfully. Dissenters and Catholics have the right to vote at the vestry. Peers of the realm, members of parliament, Roman Catholic priests, Dissenting ministers and teachers, barristers, attornies, physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, aldermen, and persons living out of the parish, unless they occupy a house of trade there, are exempted from the office.

The church-rates have materially waned with the decline of the parish vestry, which was so intimately connected with the church system. The vestry is the most ancient taxing body in the kingdom, and is first mentioned under Edward III. The churchrate serves for the purpose of maintaining and improving the church, and is grounded neither on the common nor statute law, but merely on the bye-laws of individual parishes.† The bishop cannot tax the residents in his diocese, and the spiritual courts have only the right to impose ecclesiastical censures on the churchwardens, to compel the latter to cause the needful repairs to be made in the church. To defray the expenses of the church, rates are to be made by the parishioners at large, that is, by the majority of those that are present at a vestry duly summoned for the purpose by the churchwardens. Should no one attend, the churchwardens may then levy a church-rate according to their own estimate. The rates are charged on all land and houses in the parish; are levied on the occupiers, and are recoverable (if the arrears do not exceed £10) before two justices of the peace, otherwise, in the ecclesiastical courts. Church-rates are not paid from royal property, ecclesiastical property, or by the patron; shareholders in railways and canals are subject alike to the church-rate and the poor-rate.

By special statute, Quakers, but not Jews, Dissenters or Catholics, are enabled to get reimbursed through the justices of the peace for any church-rates which they may have paid. As general exceptions would completely destroy the scheme of the

parish, which is compounded of the spiritual and temporal concerns of the community, any one refusing to pay church-rates is proceeded against before the ecclesiastical courts, which merely determine whether the church-rate was properly made, and whether there was ground for levying.* The ecclesiastical court cannot condemn any parishioner to the payment of a specified amount of rate, but has merely the right to punish the refractory individual with excommunication, which now means slight imprisonment. As the obligation to pay the church-rate arises out of the power derived from the common law of making bye-laws, the amount of rate can only be sued for before the courts of the common law.

By reason of the large number of Dissenters, who frequently constitute the majority in a parish, this rate has gradually declined, for where Dissenters, Jews, and Catholics are in the majority, it is scarcely conceivable that a resolution for the levying of a rate should meet with acceptance. Since 1837, 5000 parishes have rejected the church-rate.+ Within the last few years the motion is annually brought forward in parliament for the abolition of church-rates; hitherto, however, without a successful result.

The separation of the spiritual functions of the parish from the temporal has been completely effected by the New Churchbuilding and New Parish Act (1856), whereby in all the newlycreated spiritual districts and parishes select vestries are abolished. The open vestry consists of the body of pew-holders, and has only to concern itself with spiritual matters, and with the levying of the church-rate. The civil parish, since the introduction of the new poor-law, has become the groundwork whereon the superstructure of modern self-government is erected. From this are derived the representatives of the poor-law unions, and of the numerous other recently introduced municipal bodies.

The highway rate is still a parish rate raised from landed property, houses, and tithes. Churches, meeting-houses, schools, museums, and royal edifices, are not subject to this rate. It is not a burthen upon the land, as the person succeeding to the possession is not bound for any arrears of his predecessor. It is imposed by the surveyors of highways for those parishes in which the repairs of the roads are deemed necessary.

*Burns, i. 387.

+ Gneist, ii. 90.

Toulmin Smith, 66.

The right of the parish to make bye-laws for its own administration has been acknowledged in the celebrated Braintree case.* The statute 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 90, makes provisions for lighting and "watching" in the parish. Individual parishes may adopt them, or several parishes be consolidated in one union; the statute may also be introduced into one part of a parish. In the event of the adoption of the provisions of this Act, inspectors are appointed for carrying them into effect. The inspectors of several parishes may combine into one body. Later laws have limited the operation both of this act and the provisions for lighting on the part of the parish.† Where no other local authorities exist, the inspectors carry out the provisions of the Nuisance Removal Act of 1855. The parish and its functionaries, in the absence of other public boards, is authorized to establish baths and washhouses.

A single authority, or administrative board, having all the functions of the parish under its control, no longer exists, constituted, that is, on the broad plan of a town common council. There is a mass of functionaries in the parish, severally attending to some special business, but having otherwise scarcely any connection. Whatever does not fall within the compass of certain legally defined functions, is accordingly ignored both by the parish officials and the vestry.

The parish is therefore no longer a community acting for itself, and entering upon all communal concerns.‡

The more ancient subordinate officials of the parish, as the parish clerk, vestry clerk, and sexton, are still under spiritual supervision. Their duties are too familiarly known to require description.

Toulmin Smith, 50. "Bye" means in Saxon, "an inhabited place." "Byelaw," consequently, "a local statute."

Toulmin Smith, 140.

According to the common law, the scope of parish administration was much wider than at the present day.

During the middle ages the administration of the parish embraced the entire communal system. Toulmin Smith's learned treatise, The Parish, treats the whole subject exhaustively, and is worthy of being consulted.