the union, may appear as co-respondent, s. 2. Any overseer who wilfully omits to make the declaration required by the act of 1862, or makes the same falsely, liable to a penalty not exceeding £5 on summary conviction before two justices.

In 1869, by an act (32 & 33 V. c. 67) to provide for uniformity in the assessment of rateable property in the metropolis, the above acts (6 & 7 W. 4, c. 96, 25 & 26 V. c. 103, and 27 & 28 V. c. 39) were repealed as to the metropolis, and various rules as to the valuation of metropolitan property and appeals from such valuation were enacted.

By 25 & 26 V. c. 82, where any number of local rates and taxes are due from the same person, the rates and taxes so due may be included in the same information, summons, or other document required to be laid before justices, or to be issued by justices; and every such document shall, as respects each rate or tax comprised in it, be construed as a separate document, and its invalidity as respects any rate or tax shall not affect its validity as respects any other rate or tax comprised in it.

The 28 & 29 V. c. 79, provides for the better distribution of the charge for the relief of the poor by the repeal of so much of 4 & 5 W. 4, c. 76, as required parishes in union under that act to defray the expense of their own poor. From March 25, 1866, all the cost of relief to the poor and the burial of the dead under the direction of the guardians or their officer, and charges incurred by the guardians in respect of vaccination and registration fees, to be charged on the common fund of the union. A pauper relieved in such union, if settled in a parish of another union, the guardians may order his removal to the union to which he is chargeable, s. 2. Guardians of respective parishes may defend and appeal against such removal with the like incidents as removals by overseers. Guardians may remove without orders where there is consent. Pauper removed and returning within twelve months to the union from which he has been removed, punishable as an idle and disorderly person, under 5 G. 4, c. 83. By s. 8, one year to be substituted for the three years under 24 & 25 V. c. 55, s. 1. Cost of prosecutions to be charged on the common fund. Last residence of a poor person dying in a work house to be his place of burial, s. 10 By s. 12, the guardians to distribute the charges upon the common fund during and at the close of every half year in the proportions according to which the orders for the contributions to the common fund were made upon the several parishes comprised in such unions at the commencement of such half-year, notwithstanding the change which may be made in the valuation list of any parish during such period. In other respects the settlement unaltered. Unions under local acts may avail themselves of this act.

By the Poor Rate and Assessment Act, 1869 (32 & 33 V. c. 41), which does not extend to Scotland or Ireland, 13 & 14 V. c. 99, is

repealed, so far as applies to poor rate, and occupiers of tenements let for short terms may deduct the poor rate paid by them from their rents. In certain cases of small tenements the owners may agree with the overseers to become liable for the poor rates, and in such case they may be allowed a commission not exceeding twenty-five per cent. on the amount of the rate. The vestries may order the owner to be rated instead of the occupier, and in such case shall allow an abatement of fifteen per cent.

When an owner, who has become liable to pay the poor rate, emits to do so, the occupiers paying the same may deduct the amount from the rent. The owners may make the poor rate payable by instalments. The owner may appeal against any payment of rates which he has become liable to pay.

IX. HOUSELESS POOR OF THE METROPOLIS.

An act of 1864, the 27 & 28 V. c. 116, enacts that, where no adequate accommodation exists, the guardians of every union or parish, situated either wholly or in part within the metropolis, shall provide such wards or other places of reception for destitute wayfarers and foundlings, as the Poor-law (now the Local Government) Board shall direct. The provisions of this act relating to the reimbursement by the metropolitan board were repealed by 30 & 31 V. c. 6, s. 60.

An act (28 & 29 V. c. 34) passed in the year 1865 continues the 27 & 28 V. c. 116, and enacts that the Poor-law Board are to cause wards and places of reception to be inspected not less than once in every four months, between 6 in the evening and 8 in the morning from October to March, and from 8 in the evening to 8 in the morning from April to September, and they may revoke or renew the certificates according to the results reported. The board may allow a sum in gross for the cost and expenses, instead of a sum for each pauper as provided in the previous act. A constable of the metropolitan police, or of the police of the city of London, may personally conduct any destitute person not being charged with any offence punishable by law within the knowledge of such constable, to any ward or other place of reception approved of by the board; and every such person shall, if there be room in such ward or place of reception, be temporarily relieved therein. The wards are to be open at the hours mentioned for inspection. The rateable value of the property in the metropolis is now (1873) considered to be about twenty-five millious sterling.

The Metropolitan Poor Act 1867 (30 & 31 V. c. 6), which extends only to the metropolis, directs how asylums for the relief of the sick, insane, or infirm, or other classes of the poor shall be provided; and it provides for the formation of districts, the

number of asylums, the constitution and election of a body of managers of asylums, and their powers, as to acquiring land, and raising money, &c.

This act enables the Poor-law (now the Local Government) Board to build dispensaries, and appoint district medical officers, and otherwise to make arrangements for giving out-door medical relief.

Asylums for the sick and lunatic, medical relief, dispensaries, district schools, and training ships, contributions of unions and parishes and the control of the Poor-law (now the Local Government) Board, are also dealt with in the following acts, 31 & 32 V. c. 122, ss. 11, 35; 32 & 33 V. c. 63 & 67, s. 47, and c. 102, s. 37; 34 & 35 V. cc. 15 & 108.

X. CHURCHWARDENS.

Churchwardens are chosen annually, on the 28th March, or within fourteen days next after, either by the minister, the parish, or both together, as custom or statute directs. They represent the body of the parish, and are appointed to look after the church, and observe the behaviour of the parishioners, in such matters as appertain to ecclesiastical censure and jurisdiction.

The usual mode of choosing churchwardens is, for those in office to nominate two persons to succeed them; but this mode is not exclusive of other methods, and, though customary, is not absolutely necessary. The regular mode of proceeding in their appointment is by poll; but Sir John Palmer, in Nicoll v. Roffey, expressed a doubt whether a poll, though demanded, must be granted.

Until a churchwarden has taken the oath of office at the next visitation after his election, he cannot act in his official capacity, nor have any power to make or levy any rate, or reimburse himself for any money advanced to the parish, or do any other act in virtue of his parochial functions.

Generally speaking, all the inhabitants of the parish are liable to serve in the office, except peers and members of parliament, clergymen, barristers, attorneys, physicians, surgeons, aldermen, officers of the customs, and other persons whose avocations require constant personal attendance; aliens, papists, Jews, dissenting preachers, and persons living out of the parish are disqualified.

The duties of the office are to bind out poor children as apprentices; to collect and disburse assessments, made by the parishoners, for the repair of the church; to keep the keys of the belfry, and take care the bells are rung only on proper occasions ; during a vacancy of the benefice, to observe that the church is properly aired and kept clean, and in good repair; to provide all requisites for the communion service, christenings, and other ceremonies; to prevent indecent or disorderly behaviour at church, for which purpose they may, without being guilty of an assault, take off a person's hat, or

even turn him out of the church; to maintain a due observance of the Lord's day by shopkeepers and others, and prevent all tippling in ale-houses during the hours of divine service; to assist the overseers in making out the list of persons qualified to serve on juries; to cause dead human bodies, cast on shore, to be decently interred; to apprehend and safely secure all lunatics and insane persons; to see that the parson does his duty according to the rites of the Church of England; and to see that the minister enters in the register all weddings and other matters required by the Registration Act; and to give public and proper notice to the parishoners of the holding of vestries.

Churchwardens are also required to see to the making of the church rates, by which the expenses of the church are to be defrayed. These rates are charged on all lands and houses in the parish, are assessed on the occupiers, and are made by the majority of the parishioners present at a vestry summoned for that purpose by the churchwardens. In 1868 an act (31 & 32 V. c. 109) was passed which enacts that church rates shall no longer be compulsory on the persons rated, but it provides that any person refusing to pay them shall be disqualified from interfering with the moneys raised by the rates.

The churchwardens have such special property in the organ, bells, parish books, Bible, surplice and chalice, that they may bring an action, in their joint names, for any damage they sustain.

The SEATS of the church, being fixed to the freehold, are the common property of all the parishioners who contribute to the repair of the church; and the churchwardens, alone, cannot dispose of them; nor the churchwardens and rector, jointly, without consent of the ordinary, except by special custom, as in London, where they are at the disposal of the churchwardens, under the control of the parish.

The seating and arranging the parishioners in the church is vested in the churchwardens, in doing which they are to consult the general accommodation; for though the parishioners have a claim to be seated according to their rank and station, the churchwardens are not, in making the classification, to overlook the claims of all the parishioners to be seated, if sittings can be obtained for them, 1 Hagg, 314. And no power but the legislature can deprive the inhabitants of their general right in this particular.

A seat, or priority in a seat, in the body of the church, may be held by custom as belonging to a house, if it has been used or repaired, time out of mind, by the inhabitants of such house; it cannot be claimed by right of land; it must be claimed as belonging to the house in respect of the inhabitancy. It must also be prescribed for as appurtenant to a house out of the parish, Lonsley v. Hayward, 1 Y. & J. 583.

Trespass will not lie for entering into a pew; because the plaintiff has not the exclusive possession, the possession of the church

being in the parson, 1 T. R. 43. Dr. Phillimore, in giving judgment on a case arising out of a dispute about pews in a parish church, observed that both before and since the Reformation the use of the parish church had been by law free to the parishioners. Since the Reformation, fixed seats had been introduced in place of the movable ones which had been formerly in use; and these seats, with some peculiar exceptions, had been in the disposition of the ordinary, who exercised his authority through the churchwardens, they being his officers as well as those of the parish, and subject to the Consistorial courts. These courts had long since decided the following points :-1. That there can be no property in seats, the sale and lease of them being strictly illegal. 2. That all private rights in seats must be held by a faculty, or a prescription, which supposes the previous grant of a faculty. 3. There was a possessory right, which was not good against the ordinary, but sufficient to enable the possessor to maintain a suit against a mere disturber. By the Church Seats Act, 1872 (35 & 36 V. c. 49), the Ecclesiastical Commissioners may accept a church site under grant, in which it is declared that pews or seats are not to be let, or some specified portion of them; and therefore it shall be unlawful to let the same, or portion of the same, provided that a stipend of at least £100 per annum shall be secured to the incumbent.

The pulpit is the property of the parson, and the churchwardens cannot let any other minister have the use of it without consent of the incumbent.

Every churchwarden is an overseer of the poor, by 43 Eliz. c. 2; and is so considered under the 4 & 5 W. 4, c. 76, s. 109, so far as he is authorized or required to act in the management of the poor, or of the poor rate.

By the Places of Worship Sites Act, 1873, 36 & 37 V. c. 50, any persons seised in fee simple, fee tail, or for life, or lives of or to any manor or lands of freehold tenure, and having the beneficial interest therein, may convey the land to be used as sites for places of worship, and for the residence of the minister, provided that the person next entitled, in case of land held for life or lives, joins in the conveyancé. If the land cease to be used for such purpose it is then to revert. Persons who have not the legal estate, or persons under other disabilities, are empowered to convey lands for the purposes of the act. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are also empowered to accept trusts. This act does not extend to Ireland or Scotland.

Under the Church Building Act, 58 G. 3, c. 45, two churchwardens of each new church are to be chosen, one by the incumbent, the other by the parishioners. Churchwardens and overseers, within ten days after nomination, to deliver to their successors their accounts, and all moneys, goods, and things appertaining to their office; such accounts to be verified before a justice, who shall sign and attest the same, 17 G. 2, c. 38, s. 1. By 50 G. 3, c. 49, s. 1, such accounts must be submitted to two or more county justices