the tenant for his own remuneration. Now, the tithe-owner is compelled to receive the commutation rent-charge, as the full profits of the tenth. Mr. Lefevre decrees that the whole of this shall be rated, whilst the clear profits of the remaining nine-tenths shall be assessed only at one-half of their whole value; and then he gravely assures us that, since there is a difficulty in finding out what the tenant's profits amount to, this is a just, and equitable, and pacificatory measure.

I presume that this gentleman gives up his own rents on account of the difficulty of calculating accurately what they ought to be, even with "Murphy's" weather guide.

This statesman-like method of getting rid of a difficulty will not, however, affect the tithe-owner alone; there are other hereditaments not producing an occupier's profit which will also be rated at the full amount. But this equitable adjustment will not stop here. If the bill be passed, as it now lies before me, a person who embarks £2,000 in the cultivation of land, and, after paying rent and all outgoings, realises 10 per cent. (£200 per annum) clear profit, he will be exempted from paying the poor's-rate. But if his neighbour embark the same capital in a brewery, and realise the same profits, his £200 is rateable to the uttermost. No doubt he will think the distinction very just, and pay his assessment most cheerfully, to rid the parish of the difficulty of rating his farming friend; or if he be of an unhappy temper, his grumbling will be vain, for the Queen's Bench is against him, and by "Rex v. Ambleside," 16 East, 380, he must submit to be rated till he can prevail upon Mr. Lefevre to give him also an equitable discharge by throwing his burden upon other shoulders. If, gentlemen, I am right in my estimate of this declaratory bill, and your notions of justice and equity do not square with Mr. S. L.'s upon this matter, you must set yourselves in good earnest to work. Not one moment is to be lost in making known your fears, and in respectfully petitioning that your interests may be protected by the legislature, and the relative liabilities of assessing your tithes still left to the decision of the courts of law. I am, yours faithfully,

Foulmire, July 19, 1838.

WM. METCalfe.

FORM OF PETITION AGAINST MR. SHAW LEFEVRE'S BILL.

(From the Cambridge Chronicle.)

THE following petition against Mr. Shaw Lefevre's bill has been numerously signed by the clergy of the archdeaconry of Ely:

-:

"THE humble petition of the rural dean and clergy of

"Sheweth,-That your petitioners have seen with alarm that a bill for parochial assessments has been introduced into your honourable house, at this advanced period of the session, by the provisions of which the greatest injustice is likely to be done to the clergy as owners of tithes.

"They humbly submit that, if this bill should pass into a law, all property in tithes will be subjected to parochial taxation in a proportion to which it was never before legally liable; that the decisions of the courts of justice on this very point will be reversed; and the principle of assessment solemnly recognised and guaranteed in the Commutation Act set aside.

"Your petitioners therefore humbly hope that your honourable house, which has ever been regarded as the jealous guardian of the rights and property of all classes of her Majesty's subjects, will be induced either to reject this bill, or to defer the consideration of it to an early period of a future session, when more time can be allowed to receive the suggestions and hear the objections of the clergy and others, whose interests are so prejudicially affected by it. "And your petitioners shall ever pray, &c."

PETITION AGAINST THE GRANT TO THE COLLEGE OF MAYNOOTH. THE following petition against the grant to the college of Maynooth has been widely circulated by the Protestant Association, with a view to calling forth an united effort, by way of parochial petitions and applications to local representatives, to oppose so improper an application of the public money :— "That your petitioners receive the word of God as the only true standard of faith and morals, and are convinced by its testimony that the tenets of the church of Rome, as defined and settled by the council of Trent, are antiChristian, idolatrous, and utterly incapable of being reconciled by the doctrines of the gospel. That, in the judgment of your petitioners, the national endowment of a college to inculcate among the British subjects the heresies of the church of Rome, is such a participation in the guilt of idolatry, as must expose this nation to the awful judgments of Almighty God. Your petitioners would further beg leave to remind your honourable house, that it has been proved by the most satisfactory evidence before the houses of parliament, as well as by actual experience, that the college of Maynooth has failed to accomplish the objects contemplated by the statesmen who proposed its establishment, and that every consideration of sound policy, as well as the higher obligations of Christian duty, demand the abandonment of an institution which has proved the chief source of political turbulence, as well as superstitious delusion and religious discord in Ireland. Your petitioners, therefore, would humbly pray your honourable house to discontinue the annual grant made to the college of Maynooth, and your petitioners will ever pray that the Divine blessing may rest upon your deliberations.

TRIALS.

TITHES-MODUS.

Exchequer Equity Sittings, Gray's Inn Hall-Wednesday, June 20.

(Before Lord Abinger and Barons Bolland and Alderson.)

JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD, v. TYRRELL AND OTHERS.-These bills were severally filed by the plaintiffs, the principal, fellows, and scholars of Jesus College, of the University of Oxford, as lessees of the rectorial tithes of the rectory of Treddington, in the county of Worcester, against the defendants, who are the occupiers of land within the rectory, for an account of tithes arising out of the land in their occupation, situate therein. The plaintiffs claimed to be entitled to receive the tithes in kind, and the original defence was, that from time immemorial certain annual payments had been made in lieu and satisfaction of the tithes of the land in the respective occupation of the defendants, and they insisted that if such yearly payments were for any reason not good and valid moduses, they had been paid and were payable by virtue of a good and valid real composition, made by the consent of all parties, before the restraining statute of Elizabeth. The question came originally before Mr. Baron Alderson, who decided in favour of the plaintiffs, that the defendants could not in their answer set up the alternative of a modus or composition rent, but that they were bound to select either one defence or the other. The case came afterwards upon the merits before the court, upon a rehearing, when his lordship directed an issue to try the question of the validity of the modus set up by the defendants. The issue was accordingly tried; but the jury, being unable to agree in their verdict, were discharged, and it was agreed that the question should be referred to the full court. The question accordingly came on to-day before the full court, when

Mr. Boteler and Mr. G. Richards appeared for the plaintiffs, and read extracts from the rector's and college books, to shew that there had been a variation in the sums paid, which vitiated the defence as to the modus.

Mr. Simpkinson, Mr. Sidebottom, and Mr. W. Eagle, on the other hand, contended that, although there might have been a variation in the payments at particular periods, yet the books shewed that a fixed sum was paid annually, and, consequently, the modus set up was good.

Their lordships, at the close of the argument, postponed judgment.

TITHES-MODUS.

Saturday, June 30.—(Before Mr. Baron Alderson.)

OLIVER v. ADDERLEY AND OTHERS.-This case occupied the court the whole day.

The bill was filed by the Rev. W. Oliver, the perpetual curate of the parish of Barlaston, in the county of Stafford, against the defendants, occupiers of lands within the parish, for an account of all tithes, great and small, except corn, grain, and wood. The defendants set up certain distinct moduses as exempting them from the payment of tithes of hay, milk, calves, and agistment, and particularly the enjoyment by the incumbent of certain lands, called Priest's Meadow and Dustillow Dell, in satisfaction of tithe of hay, and in support of their case produced various terriers and the evidence of numerous witnesses. The whole of the arguments were directed to the goodness of these moduses, which the plaintiff's counsel contended were wanting in three essential requisites-viz., certainty, invariableness, and immemorial usage; the terriers themselves shewing that the incumbent did not, in 1616, hold the meadows in question, but that they were acquired subsequently, and also varying in their description of the boundaries.

Mr. Simpkinson and Mr. Eagle were for the plaintiff; and Mr. Boteler and Mr. Lowndes for the defendants.

Judgment deferred.

RIGHT

OF PRESENTATION.

Rolls' Court, Friday, June 22.

BENBOW V. THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH AND OTHERS.-Mr. Pemberton, for the plaintiff, moved for an injunction against the Duke of Marlborough, the Marquis of Blandford, the Bishop of Oxford, Mr. Latimer, and Mr. Foster, to restrain them from presenting or inducting any person to the rectory of Bladon, with the chapel of Woodstock. In 1828, the Duke of Marlborough was entitled for his life to the advowson, and he had contracted with the defendant, Samuel Forster, for the sale to him of the next presentation, in case it should become vacant in his (the duke's) life, for £1,350. A deed, dated July 1828, was executed. This presentation was, in February, 1830, put up to sale by Mr. Smith, the actuary of the Eagle office, and the plaintiff Benbow had communication with Smith about it. The Marquis of Blandford was entitled to the reversion expectant upon his father's death, and he had also purchased the life-interest of his father, and had contracted with the plaintiff Benbow for the sale to him of the next presentation for £3,150, and a deed was prepared, which was executed by the marquis, and the money paid. The incumbent afterwards died, and the plaintiff was then informed that Mr. Latimer, one of the defendants, set up some title to the presentation, and that the Duke of Marlborough had entered a caveat against Benbow, and that there was a dispute between the duke and the marquis. An application was made to the Bishop of Oxford to present the plaintiff's nominee, but he

refused in consequence of the adverse claims. The plaintiff has since filed his bill praying for a decree commanding the bishop to induct a clerk of the plaintiff's own choosing, and praying for an injunction to prevent their presenting any other clerk.

Mr. Flather, for the bishop, consented to the motion.
Order granted.

SUBTRACTION OF CHURCH RATES.

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Saturday, June 30.

FARLAR V. CHESTERTON AND ANOTHER. This was an appeal from the Ecclesiastical Court in a suit for subtraction of church-rate, originally instituted in the Consistory Court of London, by the churchwardens of St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington, against Mr. William Farlar. The grounds of opposition to the rate were, first, its inequality, by reason of certain persons not being rated who ought to be rated; and secondly, that the rate was intended to cover debts and expenses incurred in past years, and was consequently in part retrospective. The churchwardens in a responsive allegation stated, in answer to the first objection, that the persons exempted from the rate were either those whose rates were charged to the landlord, or those who from poverty were unable to pay the rate; and with respect to the second, that the debt was incurred for necessary expenses, with consent of the parish, and was paid off from year to year. The judge of the Consistory Court rejected this part of the allegation, as offering no legal answer to the objection to the rate. Mr. Farlar appealed from this decision to the Court of Arches, which reversed the decision of the Consistory Court, and admitted the allegation. From this sentence the Churchwardens appealed to the Privy Council.

The Right Hon. T. Erskine delivered the judgment of their lordships, reversing the sentence of the judge of the Arches Court, on the ground that the rate, as admitted by the churchwardens, was made, not to cover expenses of the current year, but to include outstanding debts incurred in a preceding year; and though their lordships would not have held the rate vitiated by a single item of a retrospective complexion, here was a considerable sum of that character. They were therefore of opinion, that the allegation was not admissible as an answer to Mr. Farlar's allegation, and they rejected this part of it, remitting the cause.

DOCUMENTS.

BILL FOR DECLARING THE LAW OF ASSESSMENT WITH REGARD TO THE NEW RENT-CHARGES FOR TITHE UNDER THE COMMUTATION ACT.

"A Bill to declare the Effect of an Act of the Sixth and Seventh Years of King William the Fourth, to regulate Parochial Assessments.

"Whereas by an act passed in the sixth and seventh years of the reign of his late Majesty King William the Fourth, intituled an 'Act to regulate Parochial Assessments,' it was amongst other things enacted, that 'from and after such period, not being earlier than the 21st day of March next after the passing of the said act, as the poor law commissioners shall by any order under their seal of office direct, no rate for the relief of the poor in England and Wales shall be allowed by any justices, or be of any force, which shall not be made upon an estimate of the net annual value of the several heredita

ments rated thereunto (that is to say, of the rent at which the same might reasonably be expected to let from year to year, free of all usual tenants' rates and taxes, and tithe commutation rent-charge, if any, and deducting therefrom the probable average annual cost of the repairs, insurance, and other expenses, if any, necessary to maintain them in a state to command such rent;' and it was thereby provided, that nothing therein contained shall be construed to alter or affect the principles or different relative liabilities, if any, according to which different kinds of hereditaments are now by law rateable.' "And whereas doubts have been entertained whether it be the intention of the said lastly recited provision, that as between hereditaments not producing an occupier's profit, and hereditaments producing an occupier's profit, the former hereditaments shall be rateable only in respect of the net annual value thereof, as defined by the said act, and the latter shall be rateable as well in respect of such net annual value as of the net profits of the occupiers thereof; "Now for removal of such doubt, be it enacted, by the queen's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that nothing in the said act or in any other act contained, shall have or be deemed to have the effect of rendering any hereditaments liable to be rated for any occupier's profit in addition to the net annual value of such hereditaments, or of entitling any hereditaments not producing an occupier's profit in addition to the net annual value to any deduction in or from rate, on the ground that other hereditaments producing an occupier's profit are rated only on the net annual value thereof."

SUBSTITUTION OF AFFIRMATION FOR OATHS BILL.

THE following is the bill for permitting affirmation to be made instead of an oath in certain cases :

I. Whereas by an act passed in the reign of King William the Third, intituled, "An Act that the Solemnization, Affirmation, and Declaration of the People called Quakers, shall be received instead of an Oath in the usual Form," reciting that divers dissenters, commonly called Quakers, refusing to take an oath in courts of justice and other places, are frequently imprisoned and their estates sequestered by process of contempt issuing out of such courts, to the ruin of themselves and families, it is enacted, that every Quaker, on every occasion (except on criminal trials), where an oath is by law required, shall be permitted to make solemn affirmation and declaration in lieu thereof; and whereas the same privilege has by subsequent acts of parliament been extended in all cases to the persons called Quakers and Moravians, and has been granted to other persons under the denomination of Separatists, and has been found highly useful to the public interest; but many persons who fall under none of these denominations sincerely believe that they cannot lawfully take an oath, and are thereby placed in a great measure out of the protection of the law, and are liable to punishment for suppressing the truth, when they are desirous of making it known in that manner which alone they in their consciences hold to be lawful, to the manifest hindrance and scandal of public justice; and whereas it is expedient and fitting that the aforesaid privilege should be extended to such persons, on their producing satisfactory assurance that they really believe the taking of an oath to be unlawful; be it therefore enacted by the queen's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that it shall be lawful for any person to require the clerk of the peace in England or Ireland, VOL. XIV.-August, 1838. 2 D