The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-09 00:00:00

have been searched, but up to Monday no trace of
the child had been found. At this stage of the in-
vestigation it would be imprudent to publish all
the information which we possess, but it is of such
a character that, unless it surpass some of the most
remarkable cases of circumstantial evidence on
record, the parties concerned are probably nearer
detection than they suspect.—Carlisle Examiner.

CHUB CH-R ATE S.

The protected growth of the Church•rate feud,
and the anxiety shown by Tome of our legislators
that it should be permitted to bear its legitimate
fruit, are no novelty in this isle. England is re-
garded by many as a vivarium, of social evils, in
which things confessedly mischievous are to ave
fair play, and to be let alone till we see what be-
comes of them. In natural history this zeal for
science is most meritorious. Toads and spiders,
grubs of all kinds, vermin of every description,
once placed under a glass case, become interesting
objects of observation. Nothing is more delight-
ful tilen to see animalcule° of the most monstrous
furms and rapacious habits of devouring one another
under a microscope. A war rages before you, and
strange races run through all the phases of life with
inconceivable rapidity; but you have onlyjust to turn
your eyes to the object glass, and you see it is all
in a speck of moisture, the mere fraction of a drop
of water. The old rule, " Fiat experimention in
copore viii," might lead us to be content with physi-
ological curiosities and animalcular warfare. But,
unfortunately, the same ardour of science leads us
to foster, and carefully guard from intrusive legis-
lation, social nuisances, already doing every day a
day's work of evil, and certain to end, in disastrous
catastrophes. A clergymdti of eccentric tastes and
impracticable temper empties a noble church for 20
years, and stuns the metropolis with his squabbles.
In the interest of social science he must be let alone
till the patience of his parishioners is at last ex-
hausted, and there ensues a church riot. Immedi-
ately all eyes are fixed on this rare and curious de-
velopment ; the glass shade is placed carefully over
the monsters, and the nation waits to see what will
come of it. We are pursuing exactly the same
course with the Church-rate controversy. The whole
country is divided ; some hundred parishes are dis-
tracted by a bitter warfare : the Church which we
are taught to believe the Kingdom of Heavenis
made to depend on the right of a majority to extract
shillings from a minority. Where there is no quarrel
now itis invited by the law itself, and certain to come;
but, don't interfere; take care how you breathe,
how you tread ; don't shake the stand; let us wait
to see what will come of it, whether an explosion, a
fire, something alive, or perhaps only a very bad
smell, and results more offensive than mischievous.
Meanwhile the harm done is not speculative, but
actual ; but we leave the victims to their fate, be
they embittered Churchmen or dogged Dissenters.
We deal with the case as Charles Lamb directed his
friend, on presenting him with a puppy—" Should
the deg bite your son, shoot the boy, and shut up
the dog, to see whether he is mad." There is no
question of the number of persons bitten and in-
fected with a most malignant virus. Our scientific
legislators leave them to their fate, and confine their
attention to the controversy, which they want to
see running through all the stages of madness, even
if it should bite a good many more.
On one point all the philosophers are agreed ;
the question is ripening slowly to some development
or other. All agree that " we shall be worse before
we are better." If the " central authority," as Mr.
Disraeli now calls the Queen, Lords, and Commons,
does not interfere, the rate will become more and
more exceptional, anomalous, and unjust. Church
after church will be built, district after district will
be formed, themselves dependent entirely on volun-
tary funds, but liable to be taxed by the majority of
the whole parish for the support of a mother church.
Parish after parish will throw off the burden with
violence, insult, and a lasting resentment on both
sides. The Church, all the time, will suffer the impu-
tation of being a State fixture and a State property.
In fact, the principle of Church and State, which
Mr. Disraeli professes to make the ground of his
vote, will be maintained in its most ungracious
form, and yet without success, for parish after
parish will do for itself what the " central au-
thority" is too prudish to do fora. Where the
vestry consists of a few tenant farmers, the rate
will be levied - at the lowest and shabbiest figure,
for the farmers must pay that much, having taken
it into account in their agreements with their
landlords, but not a sixpence more, to prevent the
roof from filling in. This is what people meant
yesterday by callingthisa question of town against
country, as if the rate in rural parishes were so
hearty and genial an affair. Such is the rate which
it is boasted nine parishes out of ten are so glad to
pay that they would consider it a great cruelty
were the central authority to render it quite op-
tional. Here, then, we have the development to
which Lord H. Montagu, Mr. K. Seymer, and Mr.
Disraeli would bring usi more churches on the
voluntary system ; more districts taxed for mother
churches ; more parishes availing themselves of the
Braintree decision, and throwing off the impost;
and the rate itself levied on a still parsimonious
scale, to the great injury of the fabrics, and discre-
dit of the Church. The advocates of the rate hold
out no better prospect. This is the inevitable work-
ing of the alternative they recommend ; and, strange
to say, they claim to be thought special friends of
the Church, and describe as its enemies all who re-
commend any other course. The development or
solution of the controversy which was implied in
Sir J. Treiawny's bill, read a second time yester-
day by a majority of 29, would put an end to the
very great anomaly of the majority in a vestry
being able to lay on a parish an otherwise volun-
tary rate ; it would reduce all England to the sys-
tem by which nearly all our metropolitan churches
out of the city itself are maintained in high repair ;
and it would cause the immediate introduction
everywhere of a system of Church gusardianship,
under which the fabrics would be much better
looked after than they are now.
When gentlemen like Mr. Disraeli undertake to
.guard the relations of Church and State, they are
very likely to make great mistakes. The fabrics
of the Church of England are new chiefly main-
tained by voluntary means. What is subscribed
annually for the building, repairing, and adorning
of churches, together with subscriptions for the
proper maintenance of the service has been com-
puted at near a million and a half a year. The
Church. rate is only about a quarter of a mil-
lion, or 17 per cent. of the voluntary collec-
tions. What keeps up the Church really, then,
is the voluntary element; fur without it, and with
nothing bat the rate, there would be no new.
churches, no enlargement of churches, no extensive
repairs, no renovation of the roof and restora,retnloo,
the seats ; no new windows, no organs, nob oet,
no officials ; nothing, in fact, but the_at_a
always weather-tight, in which our febuhre.crbs:Nrvaotre:
shipped till fifty years ago. Zhe
which Mr. Disraeli holds up
' a
the mystic union and the palladsitumegolden link of
opfritshoen Ealsltoawb..
lishment, is but its paupers dole, its
-
rindee to buy
ance, its penny thrown to the organ _
recentg revival of
him out of the street. Till the
was the rule of the
Church's architecture the rate
Church's poverty.
it entailed an addition to
Nothing
tcob ueldo p be
opened
e ddooiriogl foraze glazed,
village church, because
the rate. A window could no
extricated from the brick
table- could not be covered
sthtueffitrnage,etrbyeccoounildranuontiob
lea
t with a decent cloth, an organ could
e c
enloetb
rbaet erected,
tabnadnefeo-cunr m
ctoi menu :
y
i
tion to the rate, which the vestry considered it was
ai ear c, obu
e l d e anu
so e b
entailed an addi-
their duty to keep down. The ratepayers might
be liberal enough when it was a matter of choice,
but they felt put on their honour to screw the rate
down to the lowest point. Nor was the vulgarity
of pew-rents, which Mr. K. Seymer so feelingly
deprecates, avoided by the use of the rate. The
farmers enlarged and multiplied the pews in pro-
portion to the rates they paid, till they usurped the
whole area of the churches, and drove the poor who
paid no rates up into the gallery, or under it, or out
of the church altogether into the neighbouring
meeting-house. This was particularly the case in
rural districts, where Mr. K. Seymer says that
p
questions
e w-rents arest
ilt e odd
ui opu
ons . tln
he t torpm
ot hlikef ,
ome
natniym
eontthoe
or
other, this is really a question of facts, and the more
the facts are inquired into, the more will it be found
that the Church of England thrives much better on
the voluntary than on the compulsory system.—
Times.

SINGULAR AND FATAL OCCURRENCE.—A fatal and
novel accident has happened at Bilston, in Staffordshire.
On Monday morning, about 4 o'clock, the lodgers in the
house in High-street, in that town, occupied by John Welsh,
shoemaker and broker, were alarmed by a crash over their
heads, which they deccribo as resembling the report of a
cannon. The crash was accompanied by screams from one
of the rooms en the attic floor, used as the sleeping-room of
Welsh, his wife, and his two children, one in its sixth and
the other in its fourth year. It was then discovered that the
roof of the house had given in immediately over that part of
the room in which the family were at rest, and that they
were all buried beneath the debris. When the sufferers
were liberated it was found that they were all more or less
injured, Welsh so much so that his life was despaired of.
He died at 10 o'clock the same morning, notwithstanding
the prompt attendance of a surgeon. Death is attributed to
spinal injuries, caused by the accident, as there aro no ex-
ternal marks en the body. The house is a large ono, be-
longed to Mr. Thomas Baker, a grocer, was let for 4s. 2d.
a-week, and, notwithstanding that it had a heavy roof of
brick tiling, the rafters were composed of comparatively
slender strips of fir wood, now greatly decayed. A short time
ago the corresponding portion of the roof situated at ovo the
adjoining room to that occupied by Welsh, fell in, and an
eld t•-•" 1.
excitement prevails in the neighbourhood of the ill-fated
house, as there are several similarly constructed not far
from it.