§ SIR HENRY PEEKasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true that the old City Church of St. Margaret Lothbury with St. Christopher-le-Stock and St. Bartholomew Exchange, seating, according to the Ordnance Map, 800 adults, is about to be "almost entirely reconstructed internally," at a very large expense, though by the Census of 1871 the population of the three united parishes was only 316, and is believed to be now much less; whether the alternate patrons, the Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of London, have been consulted on the subject; whether the moneys relied on to meet such expense will be in any part derived from voluntary subscriptions, or mainly from such funds 1222 as lately formed the subject of a Royal Commission, under the presidency of the Duke of Northumberland, and on which early legislation was recommended and has since been promised; and, whether, pending such legislation, he will take care City parochial funds are not wasted and misapplied as they have of late years been in the many ways in-indicated by the Royal Commissioners, and particularly that the proposed expenditure on St. Margaret Lothbury shall at any rate be postponed?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, the reported application of City parochial funds to the re-construction of the old City church of St. Margaret, Lothbury, with St. Christopher-le-Stock and St. Bartholomew Exchange, was not a matter with which the Home Office had any authority. He was, however, in communication with the Charity Commissioners, and hoped something might be done by them.