COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 22 August 1860)

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
said, it appeared to him that the public were not aware of the great powers which would be conferred by this Bill, empowering the pulling down of fifty-four churches in the City of London, which were at the present time amongst the greatest ornaments of the City. No one could come up the river without admiring the architectural effect they produced. He must again condemn 1695 the way in which measures of such importance were brought forward at such a late period of the Session, when it was impossible to give them a proper discussion.

§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK
said, he had given notice of a Motion to add, at the end of Clause 14, a proviso to preserve the churches of St. Stephen's, Walbrook; St. Martin, Ludgate; St. Peter, Cornhill; and St. Swithin, Cannon Street; and the towers and steeples of any of the churches within the City of London, and specified in a schedule. When he named these churches he did not mean to imply that these were the only churches in the City which ought to be preserved; and since he had given notice of this Amendment he had received a communication from the Society of British Architects, enclosing him a still further list of those churches which, from the ornaments they were to the City, ought to be preserved. He had mentioned only four churches in his Amendment, believing that the others from their importance in the City would he able to take care of themselves; but he had since ascertained by the statement he had received from the Society of British Architects that many of those churches which he believed would be preserved were to be taken down. Therefore, instead of moving his Amendment, he would ask the Government to give a pledge that none of those churches should be taken down which were enumerated in the memorial of the Society of British Architects.

§ MR. HUBBARD
said, he wished to add to the clause these words, And the scheme for the removal of any church or parsonage shall provide for the erection of another church or parsonage within the limits of the Metropolis.

§ MR. POTTS
said, he would move an Amendment to the effect deferring the sale of the churches until two years after the completion of the scheme for the drainage of the Metropolis, and not even then, unless the populations of the parishes in which the churches were situated have not increased. He was persuaded that the City churches were admirably adapted for the purposes for which they were intended. He had recently attended several, and he had found in some of them fifty or sixty persons, and the churches well cared for, while the little children who attended them ought certainly to be recollected. These buildings had been erected for the service of the Almighty, and unless the Almighty 1696 by some casualty destroyed them he did not think that man had any right to pull them down. Perhaps, when the main drainage scheme was carried out, and the Thames became again a pure and limpid stream, London might become once more a place of residence to these who carried on their business within its limits. Again as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would in a few years have £60,000 a year from the prebends of Finsbury and Mora, which could be applied to the building and endowment of churches in the vicinity of the Metropolis, it was unnecessary to sell the sites to raise money for that purpose; and he thought they should first try the experiment of taking down the pews and throwing the churches open for a few years. He protested, therefore, against their destruction at this moment. In a matter of such importance there ought to be no undue haste. The House had recently voted a large sum for temporal fortifications, and they ought to remember that spiritual fortifications were still more necessary.

§ MR. ALDERMAN SIDNEY
said, he looked upon the Bill as one of common sense, for the population had left the City of London, and the 109 parishes into which the City was divided were now hut a shadow of what they formerly were. In many of the parishes there were neither poor nor poor rates, and in some of them there was no residential population whatever. He therefore thought that, whatever might be said about despoiling the churches, it was competent for the House of Commons to consider whether a great many of the churches in the City had not become useless in consequence of the people having gone to live elsewhere. It was very well to talk of the children attending some of the schools in the City parishes, but they were attended by children whose parents did not reside in the City, and were attracted there from other parishes. He (Alderman Sidney) had resided for twelve months in the City, whilst holding the office of chief magistrate, and having attended the churches every Sunday, he could bear witness to the fact that those churches were very thinly attended for public worship. Therefore, to keep up these edifices, costing thousands a year, with only a few persons attending, he could not but consider as had legislation, as they ought not to be maintained when they had lost their worshippers. He gave his hearty consent to the Bill, and he hoped the Amendment would be negatived.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
supported the Bill, as he believed that the children were attracted to the City schools by little presents which were given them in the churches. He considered that the arguments which had been used against the removal of these churches were altogether untenable.

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
remarked that the Bill should specify the particular churches which were to be taken down, instead of leaving the matter in the hands of some unknown person.

§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK
said, that if he had any voice in the matter, he would have all the pews abolished. They were not only unsightly, but prevented numbers of persons attending the churches. Before the public services commenced at Westminster Abbey the ordinary attendance was but about 200, but as soon as it became known that the best seats were open for the first comers, a wonderful increase took place. No man was a greater opponent of pews than Sir Christopher Wren in an architectural point of view, so that, upon both grounds, he thought they ought to be done away with.

§ MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE
said, he entirely concurred in the opinion stated by the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the Committee. He wished to see these churches freely thrown open to the people; but he saw no reason for their destruction at a time when it was thought advisable to employ theatres, and other purely secular buildings, for the purposes of Divine worship.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he must remind the Committee that they were discussing the principle of the Bill, rather than the particular clause. The question upon the principle had been raised upon the last occasion by the hon. and learned Member for Wallingford; and the Committee, by a large majority, had decided in its favour. He could not assent to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Barnstaple.

§ MR. MALINS
said, that although upon a former occasion he had divided the Committee upon the principle of the Bill, yet he did not desire to retain all the churches in the City. He did not think the Bill was a good one, as he was of opinion that a settled scheme should be laid before Parliament. However, as the Committee had decided to go on with the Bill, he hoped that his hon. Friends would confine themselves to the discussion of the clause.

§ MR. JOHN LOCKE
observed, that the hon. and learned Gentleman was inconsistent in urging the Committee to go on with the Bill, while he deprecated the absence of any settled scheme. If the Bill passed in its present shape, no one could tell what churches would be pulled down; and he, for one, objected to leaving the matter in that uncertainty. He could not support the Amendment, which was perhaps waggishly intended to defeat the Bill altogether, by deferring its action until two years after the completion of the main drainage scheme—a period most remote and uncertain. Unless some assurance was given as to what churches were to be pulled down, he thought the Committee should reject the clause.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, he must congratulate the Committee that there were yet several days of the Session left to discuss the Bill; for it seemed to him that they should not get it through Committee before the end of the next week, at the rate they were going. It would be useless to repeat all the arguments used in the former stages of the Bill with respect to the depopulation of the City, and the removal of the churches. The truth was, that the City was losing its inhabitants; not from the poverty, but the great wealth of the citizens; who wanted every inch of room they could obtain for warehouses and offices, which fetched enormous rents. The consequence was that, at the present day, it would be the greatest possible extravagance to have a large place of residence in the City. In truth, it seemed to him the only objection which might fairly be made to the Bill was, that too many consents were required before a church could be pulled down; and that, in fact, over security was provided. With regard to the Order in Council, his belief was that a bond fide discretion would be exercised by the Government with regard to any scheme which might be brought before the Privy Council.

§ MR. CRAWFORD
remarked, that a union of benefices had taken place at York in the time of Edward VI.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, that taking a common-sense view of the case, there could be no doubt it was high time many of the churches were removed from the City. As for people going miles to attend service in them, he would ask his hon. and learned Friend, the Member for South-wark, whether he had ever walked down from his aristocratic abode in Belgravia to 1699 attend church at Garlick-hill? The truth wag, that the City folks were all devoted to money-getting, and they wanted no churches there. He might say, in the well-known words of Mr. Burke, that "the citizens had made their counting-houses their churches; their desks, their altars; their ledgers, their Bibles; and their money their God." All those who wanted to attend public worship, would, of course, do so in the suburbs where they lived.

MR. HENLEY
did not think it was fair to charge the Committee with re-debating the principle of the Bill. There were two subjects in the Bill—one the union of benefices, and the other the pulling down of churches. Benefices might be united without pulling down churches. There were now about 27,000 seats in the various churches in the City for a resident population of 55,000; and he did not think that was prima facie an unnecessarily large provision. But because the people did not go to those churches, it was proposed to pull them down. He had been much struck by two pamphlets which he had read, referring to this subject; one emanating from Sion College, from which he found there was little consideration for the requirements of the people; but a good deal of consideration was given to the question of patronage and the arrangement of benefices. He thought it was a very questionable proceeding to pull down all these churches. The time might come when they would be again wanted, and they would have no funds to rebuild them.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
observed, that if there was to be a union of benefices at all, some measure must be taken with regard to the churches.

MR. DANBY SEYMOUR
said, he had spent a good part of a Sunday in going through these churches; and his opinion was that the poor would never be induced to enter them as they now were. [Sir GEORGE LEWIS: There are no poor.] If there were no poor in the City of London, there were plenty in its immediate neighbourhood; but they would never enter these grand City churches. In some that he visited, there were a few large square oak pews, stuffed and padded, with magnificent velvet cushions in them. Before these could be reached, there was a grand vestibule to pass through, guarded by a great Bumble—a magnificent-looking fellow, with a cocked hat, and covered with gold and lace. How could any ill-dressed person presume to pass through such impediments and take a seat 1700 in the church? He thought some effort should be made to adapt these churches to the cases of the poor. Let the fine pews be taken away, fit up a few deal sittings, remove the beadle from the door, and then the poor might be induced to enter. By adapting St. Paul's to the wants of the general public, there was now no difficulty in getting large audiences to attend there. If the churches must be disposed of, why not allow them to be sold by public auction, so that other religious communities might have an opportunity of acquiring, and perhaps filling them?

§ MR. POTTS
said, he would withdraw his Amendment in favour of any proposition for taking down the pews in the churches, and leaving them open to the admission of the poor.

MR. HENLEY
said, the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department had told them there were no poor in the City of London. Now, he had visited some of these churches since this Bill was introduced, and between Cheapside and Thames Street; while walking from one of them, he had seen plenty of poor people. Not only so, but he saw two street preachers addressing congregations of poor people drawn from the lanes and alleys. He would recommend that the doors be taken off the pews in the churches, and that the beadles should go for Sunday amusement somewhere else; so that no cocked hats might be seen about, and then there would be some chance of getting the poor to attend.

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
said, no effort seemed ever to have been made to adapt these churches to the use of the poorer classes. Poor persons did not like to be put out of face at church by being brought into neighbourhood with the richer classes, who were better dressed than themselves; but he believed that if the churches were adapted to their condition, they would attend. It would be found that those churches were pulled down the sites of which were most valuable. In fact, the prospect of doing this gave the stimulus to all this movement. The fingers of some people itched to get the funds that would be derived from this Church property; and hence the eagerness to appropriate it to secular purposes, to the neglect of more important considerations.

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
wished to know what was the intention of the Government with regard to the removal of these remains of mortality. The removal appeared to him to be very loosely provided for.

§ MR. HUBBARD
said, he also thought there should be some provision against the unnecessary removal of the bodies of persons who had been interred in the City churches.

MR. HENLEY
observed, that some means ought to be adopted for serving the representatives of those who were interred in the churches with notice of the intended removal of their remains.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, that in many cases it would be very difficult and even impossible to find out who those representatives were. But he would promise to reconsider that subject before the bringing up of the Report.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, this clause provided that, Notwithstanding any union of parishes under this Act, the parishes to become united shall, as to all estates and other property, and all rates, taxes, parochial rights, and all privileges, liberties, and respects whatsoever, other than such as are affected by this Act, continue and remain distinct, in the same manner as they were before such union. There were thirteen parishes in the City of London liable to the payment of tithe under an old statute of Henry VIII. After the great fire of London an Act was passed, in the reign of Charles II., and enforced by subsequent Acts, placing these parishes the churches of which had been destroyed by the fire on a new footing as respected the payment of stipends to the clergy; but there were thirteen parishes which escaped the fire, and these remained liable, under the statute of Henry VIII., to a tax of 2s. 9 d. in the pound. This enormous tax of 2s. 9d. in the pound had been obsolete for a great number of years, but it had recently been revived in the parish of St. Martin Outwich, the church of which was situate in Threadneedle Street, the rector of which was the Rev. Mr. Deanc. Mr. Deane had a son-in-law, an attorney, who 1702 in 1856 looked into the legal rights of his father-in-law, and the result was, that in December of that year a circular was issued, announcing that in future the rector would levy tithe on the property of the parish under the law of Henry VIII. In the parish there were many large banking and other establishments of enormous value, so that, the Committee would see, the revival of this old charge involved the payment of sums absolutely stupendous. The rector and his predecessors for 70 or 80 years had been in the receipt of £550 a year, but it was now resolved immensely to increase it by the revival of an obsolete charge. He would direct the attention of the Committee to one case in particular—that of the proprietor of the Baltic Coffee House, to whom a circular was sent, which concluded in the following terse language:— The simple question between you and the incumbent is, whether you will agree to the liberal terms he proposes—namely, to compound for tithe on the Baltic premises by a payment of 2s. in the pound on £2,500 a year, in lieu of 2s. 9d. on £4,000 a year, or £250 instead of £500, which is the tithe that, in lay hands, would be enforced. We have to state in conclusion that, unless we hear from you in the course of a few days accepting the offer in our letter, and receive a cheque for the amount, we shall consider that you have declined it, and we shall withdraw the same, and enforce payment of £500. He wished to know whether by this Bill it was meant to continue, with regard to these thirteen parishes, the rent-charge imposed by the Act of Henry VIII., and which had been abrogated in the case of all the other London parishes. If the rent charge was to be levied on the principle laid down in the Act of Henry VIII., then he gave notice that he would bring up a clause on the Report repealing the statute of Henry VIII. altogether.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, that the hon. Gentleman would find that in Clause 11 words were inserted to secure the inhabitants of the parishes to which he referred from having an increased rent-charge levied upon them. It was provided that the consent of the vestry must be obtained to the scheme for creating the rent-charge to be paid elsewhere under this Act, and consequently the vestry would have full security for the protection of the interests of the parish in their own hands.

§ MR. CRAWFORD
said, that as the object of the Bill was to divert the funds, it was desirable to give the parishioner the right to dissent from that part of the scheme. This had been provided for by requiring the 1703 consent of the vestries. He had been told that the parishioners would not assemble together, and that the rector could always secure a preponderance of votes. This, however, was the fault of the vestry.

§ MR. ALDERMAN SIDNEY
remarked that the Committee were greatly indebted to the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. E. James), for calling attention to the extraordinary tithe which might be enforced under the statute of Henry VIII. The magistrates were frequently appealed to for relief against the enormous claims of the rectors of these parishes; but the stringency of the law was such that the magistrates were powerless, and could only recommend adjustment or conciliation. If the rector insisted upon his demand the magistrate was bound to commit the parishioner to prison if the demand were not paid, and there could be no release from prison until it was paid. This barbaric power of the rector ought to be annihilated. The Committee ought to receive an assurance that that should be done.

MR. ALDERMAN CUBITT
said, he thought no one in the City of London would be content to pay for the support of a church elsewhere than in his own parish.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill was sincerely opposed to the enormous exaction allowed by the statute of Henry VIII. His object was that the inhabitants of these thirteen parishes should not be compelled to pay more tithe than they had been paying for a number of years, and should come in, pari passu, with the inhabitants of the other parishes of the City. At present he would not move any Amendment; but on the next stage of the Bill he would propose a clause which would prevent rectors from enforcing the exaction of 2s. 9d. in the pound.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he should be glad to confer with his hon. and learned Friend, but he could not ask the House to interfere with the rights of these clergymen and parishes, except in so far as they were affected by the Bill.

§ MR. HUBBARD
said, he hoped that in any arrangement which might be come to nothing would be done to affect the legal incidence of this charge.

§ SIR JAMES DUKE
said, he had raised a good property in Mark-lane where an inferior property formerly stood, and thereupon his tenants had been made to pay an increase of tithe. According to this Bill 1704 the Commissioners seemed compelled to raise the highest legal lithe.

§ MR. TITE
said, that in one parish, of the City, in which he had been churchwarden (St. Helen's, Bishopsgate), the stipend of the clergyman was only £20, paid by the lay impropriator, who had purchased the tithe not many years since for £5,000, and drew, as he was informed, £1,000 every year out of the parish for tithes under the Act of Henry VIII., although, it appeared he did not take half so much as he was legally entitled to. The tithe of a house of his was raised from 15s. a year to £10 10s. When he told the collector of that gentleman, who was a solicitor, that £10 10s. was a great deal to pay, he replied, "If you were to pay 2s. 9d. in the pound you would pay twice as much." This was, he believed, the fact. He thought that the average income of the last few years might be adopted, whereby this charge of 2s. 9d. would be at all events diminished. The parishioners raised £200 a year in this parish for the clergyman by voluntary contributions; but with such an amount of tithe that burthen hardly seemed reasonable. In an adjoining parish £1,700 was raised by another lay impropriator, and in that parish there had been long-continued and most costly litigation.

§ MR. MELLOR
said, the claim of 2s. 9d. was monstrous. The rectors were not entitled to credit if they had foreborne to exact the full amount. The impost was so monstrous that even a lay impropriator dare not exact it, because he knew that if he did public attention would be called to the matter, and a remedy would be provided by Parliament. He hoped that his right hon. Friend, who was now so much engaged with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, would bring in a Bill which would limit the impost to the amount which had been actually levied in these parishes during the last four or five years.

§ MR. HUBBARD
moved to leave out "one-third" and to insert "one-half," so that one-half the sittings should be left unappropriated and free to the poor.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, that the Bill gave a minimum of "not less than one-third." Parishioners were very tetchy about their rights to pews, and it would be better to leave the clause as it stood.

§ MR. HUBBARD
said, that the appropriation of seats in a church was very odious, and the want of accommodation for the poor very great. He should insist on his Amendment.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he was willing to accept the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
moved as an addition to the clause, that all sales under the Act should be by public auction and not by private contract.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, it was desirable that some of the sites should be acquired by public bodies, for the sake of widening streets and other public purposes. It would not always be advantageous that the sale should be by public auction, because if a private speculator, wishing to build upon the ground, bid more than public bodies, the inconvenience arising from narrow streets, &c, would be continued.

§ MR. HUBBARD
said, the Amendment was hardly applicable to the Bill.

§ MR. VANCE
moved the insertion of a clause to the effect that no scheme contemplated by the Bill should be submitted to the Queen in Council, unless it had been laid two months previously before Parliament. He thought that no church ought to be demolished without due notice to the Legislature and the public generally.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, he was under the impression that the clause which was now proposed had been discussed at an early stage of the Bill, and disapproved of. If the Committee thought it was desirable that the Bill should be put in the form of a local Act of Parliament, the whole machinery would have been unnecessary. He did not think any advantage could arise from laying the scheme upon the table of the House, unless it was expected that the House should interfere by means of local legislation. The whole plan and scheme of the Bill proceeded upon the assumption that securities were to be taken for an efficient subordinate legislation, if he might so denominate it. If they relied upon the interference of Parliament, they cleared away a very large portion of the Bill. He strongly advised the Committee not to agree to this clause.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, there was a great deal of value in the clause proposed I by the hon. Member for Dublin. He (Mr. James) entertained very great distrust of the administration of the enormous power which the House was about to commit to the Ecclesiastical Commission, and he thought the clause proposed provided a very proper and necessary safeguard. The parties who drew up the Bill had taken care that the Bishop should have the nomination of three of the parties to prepare this scheme, so that there was an inevitable majority reserved to him. He should cordially support the clause.

§ MR. VANCE
said, his object was to have some check upon the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. A strong opinion had been expressed a few days ago in the House of Lords that upon any occasion for increasing the income of the dignitaries of the Church a statement of the intentions of the Commissioners ought to be first laid before Parliament.

§ MR. JOHN LOCKE
said, he would vote for the clause. The salary of the Dean of York could not have been increased by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners £1,000 a year if they had been obliged to submit to Parliament their unjust proposal to make that increase. Feeling there was not confidence in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he thought the scheme should be submitted to the House before they were called upon to sanction it.

§ MR. MALINS
said, the object of the clause proposed by the hon. Member for Dublin was, that the scheme should he first laid before Parliament; and he thought the right hon. Gentleman ought not to object to it. He looked with great jealousy on the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and he would never be one of the Members to increase their powers.

§ SIR JAMES GRAHAM
said, that he was anxious to state his views on the subject. Although he was a Member of the Ecclesiastical Commission, he certainly could not ask the House to place unlimited confidence in that body. If the Bill passed without the clause now proposed, Parliament would lose all control over the future measures that would be taken for the pulling down of churches in the City. He would not conceal that he was unfriendly to the Bill. He had joined in several votes which, if successful, would have been fatal to its progress. He thought that the clause now proposed would have a most salutary effect. Parliament was not aware what 1707 plan was to be adopted with regard to these churches, how many were to be pulled down, and how many left. It was most reasonable that both Houses should have the opportunity of considering any scheme for the removal of churches in the City, and of expressing their opinions in regard to it. Therefore, as a member of the Ecclesiastical Commission, he hoped his right hon. Friend would not exhibit any jealousy of the intervention of Parliament by opposing the clause.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he regretted to have to differ from his right hon. Friend, although he had less hesitation in doing so, as from the part he had taken in various divisions, he could not be deemed friendly to the Bill. If it were proposed to give additional power of a substantial nature to the Ecclesiastical Commission he thought the House of Commons might very naturally, after what had lately happened, be disposed to view it with considerable jealousy and to put some check on it. But if his right hon. Friend had read the Bill, he would have seen that the functions of the Commission were to be simply of a ministerial order, and that there were already so many checks and safeguards that it was almost doubtful whether the Bill would not be inoperative. First, the bishop had to appoint a Committee to investigate the case; the Commission made an inquiry and recommended a scheme; the scheme had to be submitted to the patrons, the bishop and the vestry, and then to the Queen in Council, the Ecclesiastical Commission acting merely as the medium of communication between the various parties. The House was very jealous of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and with some reason, as far as certain past transactions were concerned. But in the present instance he could not see what object would be obtained by laying the scheme before Parliament. He could understand a proposal to submit it to Parliament in the manner of a turnpike scheme, embodied in a Bill; but what would be the use of merely laying it on the table of the two Houses? The only effect would be that some hon. Member might move an Address to the Crown not to carry out the scheme. He did not think that a scheme of that kind, affecting some half-a-dozen parishes in the City, would be a fit subject for an Address to the Queen. He held that it would be much better for the interests of all concerned that the arrangement should be made by the parish, the bishop, and the 1708 patrons, than that it should be left to the catch vote of the House of Commons. The House was overwhelmed with business already, and yet was constantly wanting more. They had at present infinitely more work to do than they could dispose of in a proper manner. It was not a matter of great importance, but he preferred the Bill as it stood.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman agreed to the clause or not. He observed that the right hon. Gentleman, whenever he was at a loss for an argument, declared that hon. Members had not read his Bill. He had read it himself and believed other hon. Members had also. The right hon. Gentleman told them the only thing that could be done with regard to the scheme when laid on the table, would be that some one would move an Address to the Crown not to proceed with it. He believed that it was by no means improbable that that would be the course adopted in regard to the very first scheme of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the danger of trusting such a matter to the "catch" vote of the House, whatever that might mean; and pointed to the consideration of the matter by the vestry as an important check to any abuse. But might there not be a "catch" vote in the vestry as well as in the House? Surely more reliance could be placed on the two Houses of Parliament than on a Garlick Hill vestry, composed of two or three bakers and a few common-councilmen.

MR. HENLEY
remarked, that the principle of the clause was no novelty. It had worked very well in the case of the Enclosure Commission. People took much more pains with their work when they knew it would be submitted to the jealous eye of Parliament. He hoped the clause would be agreed to.

§ MR. BUTT
remarked, that even the rules for the regulation of practice in the Court of Chancery had to be laid before Parliament; and, therefore, if Parliament refused to trust the Lord Chancellor with the power of making rules for his own court, he thought the House should not put entire faith in a parish vestry.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
apprehended that the schemes proposed by the Enclosure Commissioners did not form a case in point, as they were appended to Bills which had to pass both Houses. All that was now proposed was that the scheme should be laid on the table, so that, unless there was 1709 an Address to the Crown or any extraordinary interference, the powers of the Act would proceed as a matter of course. He did not think any great advantage would be derived from the clause, but as there appeared to be a general feeling in its favour he would not oppose it.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, he wished for a moment to advert to the Bill which had been brought in many years ago for the abolition of "peculiars," as he was aware of a case in which that Act had caused considerable hardship. He referred to a parish in the county of Middlesex, containing 1,500 people, which was left totally unprovided for except by the payment of £23 to a clergyman, and there was no parsonage house. The parish was first of all stripped of its revenues and its rights, and then all redress to it was refused by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
consented to the clause in deference to the wish of the House, although he retained his opinion that the Bill would be better without it.

MR. HENLEY
moved the insertion of certain words, to the effect that whereas the church accommodation in the City of London was too large for the requirements of the inhabitants, there being one clergyman to every 100 parishioners, and whereas the attendance in the churches was limited, it was necessary to pull down the churches, disinter the dead, and apply consecrated ground to secular purposes.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, that formerly the preamble of a Bill was often longer than the Bill itself, but he believed it was better to adhere to the modern practice of making the preamble as brief and formal as possible.

MR. HENLEY
said, be only wished to put his own views on record.