The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-11-28 00:00:00

OLD PENSIONS.

A curious pension list has just been issued as a
Parliamentary paper. The arbitrators appointed
under the Crown Lands Act of 1566, Mr. James and
Mr. Pickering, two of her Majesty's counsel, have
awarded E 496,000 as compensation to be paid to the
land revenue of the Crown for the transfer to the
Board of Trade, for the benefit of the public, of the
Crown's rights in the foreshore of the sea and of
navigable tidal rivers. This sum is to be paid partly
by charging upon the Consolidated Fund some four or
five hundred pensions and annuities which are payable
out of the land revenue. Most of the pensions are
very small. The majority of them were granted to
churchmen by pension deeds of King Charles 11.
The Archbishop of York has three pensions of
£2l6s. 8d.,E1 45., and £l2 12s. 21.
The Dean and Chapter of York have also three—
El 10s., Pis. lid., and £l4 17s. sk; and the Dean has
one of El to himself.
The choristers of York Cathedral have also El a
year among them.
The Bishop of Winchester has 10s, for each triennial
visitation.
The grants to the Bishops of Carlisle, Chester, Dur-
ham, Lincoln, and Worcester are larger ; and the
Welsh bishops have small grants from £3 to EFL
Several Deans and Chapters are on the list—Sarum,
Chester, Glocester, Lincoln, Oxford, Litchfield,
Hereford,—the last for only 18s. 4d.
A host if vicars and curates have grants of pensions
ranging from less than up £lOO.
The key-bearer of Hereford Cathedral has his grant
of Ilk 81. a year for ever.
Masters of grammar-schools come in for their share
of these grants, Oxford professors, the poor of various
parishes, the owner of Cheshunt-park, one or two
lords of manors ; and under a modern Act f Parlia-
ment, the Master of the Hawks has his E 1,300 a year.
Ireland gets but one of all the pensions, and that is
for a constable—the constable of the fort of Hills-
borough.
. The grants to Sc dland are chiefly for University
Professors, but one or two ministers are on the list, the
minister of Dunkeld receiving the price of 43 bushels
, of meal and a like quantity of barley under a grant
, from King George IV.
. The gross funount of these pensions is £7,940 a year,
or £7,210 net. They will materially lengthen the
already long annual list of pensions charged on the
I Consolidated Fund.

A Florence telegram states that the Pope has at
length confirmed tile sentence of death upon Tognetti, one
in the non convicted of having participated in the attack on
the Serristori Barracks in Rome in October, 1867. The
IVezione asserts that the execution had been arranged to take
place on the name day that Prince Humbert and the Princess
Marguerite intended to pass through R,IIIO on their way to
Nantes. consequently the Prince and Princess will proceed
to Naples via frO.,gia, avoiding altogether the Roman terri-
tory. A later telegram states that the execution of Tomiettf
is suspended, and there is reason to believe that the sentence
passed on hint has since been commuted.
Mr. Sims Reeves hail published a letter complaining
of the orchestral pitch now used in this country, winch is a
semitone higher than that of most foreign orchestra, Mr.
Reeves therein mentions his already expressed determina-
tion not to sing for the Sacred Harmonic Society so long as
the present pitch of the orchestra is maintained.—Musizat
Standard.

ILLINOIS LAW.—In the last week of October a
man indicted for murder in Henry county, Illinois,
pleaded "Guilty" by the advice of his counsel. It
was avowed that this course was adopted with a view
to take advantage of a law passed last Session, which
provides that the jury, in convicting for a crime pun-
ishable with death, are to determine whether the pri-
soner shall suffer death Sr not, and that no person shall
be sentenced to death by any Court unless the jury
shall so find in their verilict.