The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-08 00:00:00

THE PRISONER FOR CHURCH RITES.

The following petition has been presented to the
House of Commons by Mr. P. A. Taylor :
" To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and
Ireland in parliament assembled. The humble petition of
James Brighton Grant, a prisoner in the pauper ward of
the debtors' prison, Whitecross.atreet, London, showeth :
That your petitioner carried on the trade of a brewer in
the parishes of Fmnilingham and Kettlebargh, in the
county of Suffolk, for 25 years down to February, 1866 ;
and, although a nonconformist, offered no opposition to
church rates till the last six years, having hoped year after
year that the law which forced one man to pay the
expenses of another man's worship would be repealed.
That in 1560 your petitioner learned that the for-
bearance of dissenters who took no active opposition to
church rates was used as an argument in your honourable
house that they were indifferent on the subject. Your
petitioner therefore felt it to be his duty to resist the im-
: poet to the utmost of his power, and to enoomage other
persons to do the same. That in the year 1864 a church
rate was made for the parish of Kettleburgh, on which
your petitioner was charged the sum of If. llts., and
which he refused to pay; that the churchwarden, after
summoning bhn before the magistrates in petty sessions,
who dismissed the case, took proceedings in the Ecclesias-
tical Court, and your petitioner, being advised that he
had good legal grounds of resistance, defended the action.
That the court having decided against him, and ordered
him to pay the costs on both sides, the amount of which
was not known till several months afterwards, your peti- ,
tioner's creditors, having heard that suits in the Eccle-
siastical Courts were very expensive, and fearing the cnurch- 1
warden would attach the property of your petitioner for a
very large ainount, compelled him to assign all he possessed
to them. That a forced sale of petitioner's property was
made, and his business destroyed, which left him without
the means of appealing against a judgment which he be-
lieves was erroneous. That the churchwarden, who is fully
aware of all these circumstances, arrested your petitioner
on the 15th of March last, and put him into this prison for
non-payment of costs amounting to 2371. That the
legal expenses on both sides amounted to more than
500/. That your petitioner has no means of paying the
demand m' do upon him, nor of supporting himself and
family ; that he is, therefore, compelled to live on the
prison allowance, and in all other respects as the pauper
debtors in this prison. That the churchwarden has re-
cently published an apposite the friends of the established
'Atwell for subscriptions towards his expenses, in which he
says :—" This protracted and important case, involving
three years' legal proceedings, was taken up entirely on
public grounds, believing that the system of. opposing
church rates is intended to produce sufficient discord in
every parish, that the rate might be abolished, so the
clergy would be left alone to repair the church, and be-
lieving if these aggressive movements are not checked not
only the rate but all the endowments of the national
church will be endangered, and that the course he has
taken to stop them ' may prove a benefit to the whole
country.' Your petitioner begs to acquaint your honour-
able house that there are many persons left, especially in
the rum' parishes, with the same views and of the same
spirit as the churchwarden of Kettleburgh, who will im-
prison their neighbours as your petitioner is imprisoned,
for disobeying a law which is contrary to his religious
views, and which has been again and again condemned by
vote of your honourable house. Your petitioner, there-
fore, prays your honourable house to peas such laws as will
make it impossible for one religious order to claim supre-
macy over the others by making them pay towards the
expenses of its worship, so that your petitioner may be
the last person imprisoned for resisting a church rate.—
And your petitioner will ever pray.--(Signed) JAMES
Basusiron GRANT."

THE MYSTERIOUS LANDING AT DUNGARVAN.-
A telegram from Cork yesterday says :-" Two of the men
arrested at Yongbal, as of the party that landed off Dun-
gervan, have been identified by Corydon, the informer, as
William Nagle, general of the American army, and John
Warren, captain of the 88th New York Regiment. The
informers, Massey and Corydon, proceed to Waterford to-
day to identify the 29 men in that gaol."
INTERESTING AIITOGRAPHS. - Messrs. Puttick
and Simpson, of Leicester-square, have just concluded the
sale of a very large and curious collection of autograph
letters. Amongst the more curious lots were the follow-
' ing :-64. Letter of Richard Baxter, 4!. 2s. ; 135.'
Letter of Sir Thomas Browne, 6/. 2s. lid. ; 274-5. Two
Letters of Daniel De Foe, 131. 15s. ; 314. Signature of Sir
Francis Drake to an official letter, 71. ; 322. Letter of
Graham of Claverhouse, 61. 15e. • 344. Letter of Erasmus,
9/. ; 412. Letter of Garrick respecting Home's " Douglas,"
61. sa. ; 419. Letter of Edmund Gibbon, 61. 10s.; 616.
Letter of John Locke, 81. ; 821. Letter of William Penn,
is. 6d. ; 889. Letter of the heroic Madame Roland, 51. ,•
906. Letter of Lady Rachel Russell, 71. ; 930. Letter of
Smelled, 6/. 10s. ; 970. Letter of Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford, W. 55.; 1070. Letter of General Wolfe, 51. Ss. ;1
1306. Letter of Henry IV., 3/. 15a. ; 1333. Latter of Louis
XVI., 41. 10s. ; 1350. Letter of Catherine de Medici, 4/.
1435. Series of correspondence addressed to the Earl of
Essex while Minister at the Court of Turin, 1732-36, 251.
106.; 1451. Letter of John Locke,7l.; 144:16-1517. Letters of
Sir Walter Scott, 401. 10s. 6d.
Tan CATTLE Pcnous.-Several orders in council, 1
in reference to this subject, are published in last night's
Gazette. By one of them cattle exposed for sale in any
market, for the time being licensed for the sale of cattle for
immediate slaughter, may be kept alive for the period of
six days after exposure in any such market, and no longer,
and shall not be exposed for sale in any such market a
second time.
ALLEGED OUTBREAK OF THE CATTLE PLAGUE.-
An outbreak of rintlerpest in the neighbourhood of Liver. ,
pool is reported. On Monday last a cow, belonging to Mr. ,
Parry, of Ullet.lane (just outside the borough), was I
attacked with sickness and died on the following Wednes- '
day. It was carefully examined by Mr. Ellis, veterinary
surgeon, who declared he believed it had died from raider- ,
pest. Notice of the fact was at once sent to the govern- j
meat by the local county authority, the place where the
animal died bring beyond the borough boundary, and as a
consequence, the Town Clerk of Liverpool has received in-1
telligence that an order will be sent down at once revok-
ing the license for holding the cattle market at Stanley
for the sale of store stock, though a license will still be
granted by the government for the sale of fat stock, with
privilege of movement to certain towns. The result of this
order will, it is said, be very serious to Liverpool, for it will
upset all the arrangements of the Irish trade, and re-pro.
duce tbe chaos which existed a few months since. Already
the northern part of the town is actually !placed under
quarantine by a previous order, and no animals entering
that quarter can leave it alive. It is hopeless, however,
to maintain such a quarantine, if animals from Ireland are I
not allowed to go to pasture, but have to be stalled iu the
town. Such a step at this period, when all the cattle
arriving from Ireland are what is termed " grass fed," is
likely to cause serious results, ea such cattle at the pre- I
sent time are injured by stall feeding. A deputation
from Liverpool has proceeded to London to have an in-
terview
with Dr. Williams, of the Cattle Plague Com-
mittee, at Whitehall.

_
Tue PRom ox Tat.—The guardians of St.
Pancras have entered into a contract for the supply of tea
to the workhouse at ls. 7 jd. rer lb. Mr. Homan said he
had tasted the sample, and tt was as good as that for
which he paid Is. td. • pound, which showed the
difference between contract and retail prices. Mr. Wade,
a retired tea dealer, said better tea could not be bad for
3s. a pound. The chairman, Adressing the last speaker,
said, •' What a profit you must have made."