The Express.
London, England, 1852-06-24 00:00:00

CATHEDRAL TRUSTS.

THE CASE OF THE REV. R. WHISTON.
The hearing of this case was resumed yesterday
at Doctors' Commons.

The Bishop of Rochester, Mr. Baron Parke, and Dr.
Loshington having taken their seats,
Mr. Cowling resumed for the respondent'. lie coma-
saeneed by retinues to sthe suppressors& of offices by the
dean and chapter. The first two of suppressed were,
he said, those of deacon awl sub-deacon. These two officers
were to be laymen, and were to read the divine service;
they were termed gospellers." No mach officers had
existed sine. the time of Chitties the Beeond. The duties
were now performed by • clergyman, and the dean and
chapter very properly declined to till them up. As to the
offices of butler, porter, cook, and sub-cook, they were all
attendants on the common hall, which had long ceased to
exist, and which no person had expressed a wish to revise.
With regard to the bedesmen, Mr. Whiston's conduct wee
both inexplicable and inexcusable. He mast have known
that under the charter and statutes the dean met chapter
'had no power to appoint them, the appointment
resting entirely with the crown. Mr. Whist.. complained
that the dean and chapter had discontinued the payment of
201. towards the relief of the poor, and 201. towards the
wainteumes of the highways. The regulations with regard
to the poor and the highways had been entirely changed
since the statutes were teamed ; and so far from the pay-
ment of 401. having been discontinued, many hundreds
were now paid in other forms. Mr. Whiston alleged that •
sum of 531. Os. Sd. ought to be expended annually in
repairs. He admitted the obligation; but, in point of fact,
no less than 20,0001. had been spent in repairs during the
last 211 years. The next point was the alleged neglect of
the school. It was true that Mr. Warner, the previous
master, was unsuccessful; but the dean and chapter adopted
every means in their power to remedy the evil. They pen-
sioned off Mr. Warner, and took great pains to apponit a
good outcome. One gentleman presented testimonials
stronger than those of other candidates, and that gentle-
man was Mr. Whiaton himself. Mr. Wkiffion was
appointed ; the stipend of the office was increased ;
his brother-in-law was made his widest, also et
an increased misty. As to the four University scholars,
the specific Payment of 51. a year to each was all that could
fairly be insisted upon. It appeared from the "Lila of
Kirke White" that he lived at college, without private
resources, and was actually in the receipt of money arising
from his college pursuits. Ile contended that all Mr.
Whiston's charges were untounded. His pamphlet was
not a calm production designed to convince the dean and
chapter that they bad bee• mistaken, and to lead them into
the right path, but an attack wholly unwarranted by the
facto. The scope and aim of the pamphlet were to consign
to infamy seven men who were his superiors, and who were
members of the same cathedral as himself. Where was
there any provocation for his conduct ? Was it in his
receiving a house which he did not require of the value of
401. a ear?y Or was it in his having the privilege
of taking boarders, 30 or 40 of whom he had
at the time when he entered on his office ?
If there could be any doubt as to the propriety of charac-
terising Mr. Whiston's offence as gravies delictuen, it was
whether the expression should not rather be gratrimanuni
delictum. What might have been the rank had other
perms connected with the cathedral imitated the example
thus set them/ Looking at the case in all its bearings, the
court would, he trusted, come to the conclusion that the
dean and chapter would have shrunk from their duty it
they had not dismissed Mr. Whiston ; and be submitted,
therefore, that the decision of the dean and chapter must be
affirmed.

Mr. Whitton then replied. He said they had now heard
the defence of the Deers and Chapter—a defence not impro-
vieed, but prepared in the most careful m . The Deao
and Chapter bad had an opportunity of saying everything
that they could say against himself, his conduct, and his
pamphlet, and they had not attempted to contradict or to
gainsay a single substantive fact which he had alleged.
He stood before the court uninjured in character, unda-
maged by all the charges which he should new proceed to
dispel. He should commence by taking a brief survey of
the chief incidents connected with and subsequent to his
second dismissal. Notwithstanding what Mr. Cowling bad
said of him, he had reason to believe, that if he would
have apologised, he might have been reinstated in his
office. His application to Vice-Chancellor Wignun was
refused only on the ground that that court was not • proper
one to take cognisance of the trust ; the judge distinctly
tie that he ought to have been heard by the Dean
and Chapter. The Dean and Chapter shirked a trial of the
ca., on its merits before a jury. They preferred to try the
question themselves, and served him with& citation, to show
them thathehadUotdone what they had previously found him
guilty of doing. Acting under high advice, he put in a protest.
It was unfair in Dr. Addams to represent that act uan
attempt to avoid the trial of the merits. His feeling was,
that he would not have a fair trial before those who were at
once his accusers and his judges. The question was, were
the Dean and Chapter acting in a judicial wacky ? The
issuing of the citation on appeal was a judicial act; by that
he was summoned to show cause why he should not suffer
penalty and deprivation; and he was ultimately dismissed
on the ground that he had been guilty of the charges
alleged against him. He then refereed to the statutes
of the cathedral for the purpose of showing that the
common seal of the chapter had been improperly need to
summon him. It was a well-established principle of law
that where persons acted under a power they must comply
with the directions of that power; and the Dean and
Chapter had gate in opposition to that principle. The
authorities all went to show that both judge and defen-
dant must be present in every judicial proceeding;
and to this requisition the citation was opposed. He then
adverted to the charges made against him by. Dr. Addams
of wilful misstatement; and referred to a visitation made
by Archbishop Parker to the cathedral in 1560, for the pur-
pose of showing that it elicited facts far worse than; any
which he had published in his pamphlet. Under such
circumstances he ought not to have been accused of mala
fides in suppression. [I he rev. gentleman here handed up
to the bench a paper containing, as he said, a statement of
matters suppressed in the first edition of his pamphlet,
observing that he purposely abstained from reading them
in court.] As regarded the exhibitioners, he had in vain
endeavoured to Ascertain what had been Paid to them for
the last thirty years; out, from a later which he held in
his hand, it clearly appeared that a petson who as
B.A. was entitled to 61. a year received only 61.,
and that, when he became M.A. and was en-
titled to receive 61. 13e, he intnally received only 61.
Three letters were written by him to the Dean and Chapter
and ultimately he got the proper amount. The dean and
chapter had originally assigned to them 2201. a year, and
the boys and students 801. The proportion was therefore
at first llto 1 ; whereas at present it was 6,600 to 1. He
was accused of being a false, @mullions, malignant, and
vituperative man for pointing out such abuses. There was
another accusation against him of a still more serious char-
acter, and which if true would have made it impossible for
him to sit there that morning. Dr. Addams hod accused
hint of having falsified and forged a data for the purpose of
founding on that falsification and forgery a charge against
the De in and Chapter. On what did it rest? Absolutely
on nothing Mat a miecopying of 20 as 26. Was it likely that
he should have been guilty of such conduct when the ori-
ginal was in the hands of the Dean and Chapter? He was
proceeding to refer to the documents in his own defence,
when

Mr. Baron Parke intimated that he was convinced that
there was no intentional miecopying.
Mr. Whiston continued—As tegardisd the number of
minor canons, the statute esprsetlf stated that there should
be six for ever • and it was no to the late
Archbishop of 'Canterbury to say hod *a authority
to limit the number to three. It was said that he bad ac-
cused the dean and chapter of having
offices for their own emolument. Ile= ITT re:
What he said was simply this, that these dim had been
and were suppressed, not" for," but " to " the profit of the
dean and Chapter. The learned counsel (Dr. Adios)asid
they lost by turning four minor canons bite an.. Now,
what were the facia ? Previously to the redaction, the
minor canons rejoiced in the muallsoat salary of
301. a year • but by act of pediment, the
salary was ;aimed to 150/. • year alai a house.
Four minor canons at 301. • year amounted to 1201. a year,
and four houses for them at 401. • year added to 1201. made
• total of 2801. The single canon substituted for the four
received, therefore, 901. a year lees than would have been
paid to fort minor canons. It was not to he forgotten that
livings were requised by the minor canons; and he believed
that, since the new arrangement was effected, a elm acme
of the tenons had been appointed to a living of 8001. •
year. In 1838 Dr. Griffiths, representing the Dean and
Chapter of Rochester, surged upon the Eeelesiastical Coin-
miesioners that the suppression of the great canaries
was wrong in principle and subvenive of the interests
of the church ; while, only six months before,
they had themselves suppressed three minor ethonries. He
then dwelt on the obligation of the chapter to distribute all
the funds at their disposal for the several objects provided
for, and the impropriety of their keeping a surplus for their
own benefit. 11e nest proceeded to speak of the fines, the
antiquity of which, he observed, could not be denied, and
endeavoured to show by references that they were not de-
signed to augment the incomes of tho chapter. In the sta-
tutes of the Rochester Cathedral there was no mention of
fines ; but there were provisions with regard to the letting
of farms which in spirit were opposed to the taking of fined
by the chapter. The present system of renewal every seven
years was prohibited in spirit, if not is terms.
In the case of a hospital which he had endowed
Archbishop Whitgift ordered that all fines should be ex-
pended in • certain specified manner, in order, as he said,
to afford good security against the encroachments of the
master, and his turning the revenues more to his own profit
than that of the poor. As respected the bedesmen, what
he (Mr. Whiston) asserted wed, that it was the duty of the
chapter to recommend the crown to mako the appointments,
401. a year was the amount expended ; and if that MOM had
been inverted at ai per cent., and allowed to accumulate
from 1800 up to the present time. it would now amount to
6,2301. 125.8 d. Ile had no intention to accuse the chapter
of wilfully suppressing the offices ; all he meant to say that
they were suppreered.
Mr. Baron l'arke said the appellant now admitted that
he was incorrect in accusing the dean and chapter of having
suppressed the offices.
Mr. Whistoi said he still maintained that it was the duty
of the chapter to report to the crown that the offices were
vacant

Dr. Luahington obeerved that he found nothing in the
mentaa with regard to the application of the money in Cu.
bedekmon were not appointed.
Mr. Whikton thought the eotnmon table aught to be kept
up for the love, in imitation of Eton. A soma= table
WA. a very plea•ant thing, as no doubt hi. lordship (Aaron
Parke) remembered in connexion with Trinity. Now in
order to jnktify hie di•misrol, the Dean -and Chapter must
prove that he had eonimittvd not m rely a libel, but a
malicious libel. 1)s. Ai4lllol asked the court to cousida of