The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-07-06 00:00:00

UNDER-PAID CLERGYMEN.

A petition, of which the following is a copy, has been
presented to the House of Commons :
"The bumble petition of the two undersigned clergymen
of the Established Church of England and Ireland,

" Showeth that your petitioners, being the incumbents
of the two respective and contiguous parishes of Kirkling-
ton and Stapleton, in the county of Cumberland, and the
diocese of Carlisle, desire, with great respect, to approach
your hon. house, and to solicit your kind and considerate
attention to the case they thus have the honour to lay
before you. That the two said parishes consist of an en-
tirely agricultural population, so very much scattered that
there is scarcely anything in the shape of a village in
either of them, a fact the more especially to be noticed,
since clerical labour and superintendence are hereby so
vastly increased ; a fact, too, the more easily and practi-
cally to be understood, when it is considered that the
parish of Kirklington alone contains an area of at least
twenty-seven square miles, being eleven miles by two and
a-half, the church being pretty nearly in the centre, longi-
tudinally, whilst by the roads it is more than fourteen
miles in a direct line, and with a population of 1,869 per-
sons; and the parish of Stapleton contains an area of
seventeen square miles, being four and a-quarter miles by
four, with a population of 1,119 persons. That your pe-
titioners, both married men with families, have now been
ministers of the Established Church—the one twenty-five
years, and the other thirty-one years, and thus have spent
the best of their days and their strength in her service;
and yet they have neither received at any time from her
ample funds as much as £lOO per annum. That your pe-
titioners feel this a very hard case, since the incume for
which they professionally labour is not only insufficient
for the bare maintenance of a clergyman, but that it
greatly impedes their ministerial usefulness, and deprives
the poor of their parishes of much of that pecuniary and
needful assistance which they might otherwise receive at
their hands ' • that a feeling of degradation to the ministe-
rial office is forced upon them, from the fact that they are
unable to maintain that position in society which their
calling seems to lay claim to, being positively worse re-
munerated for their services than the ordinary agents
employed in the other learned professions, in trade, in
commerce, or in manufacture ; and that it is an anomaly
not allowed to exist amongst them ; whilst on the other
hand our venerable and excellent Establishment is sup-
posed to bestow upon all her spiritual labourers an earthly
competence whereby they may live in comfort, and serve
her faithfully and without secular distraction or pursuit,
according to the Divine rule, that ' the spiritual workman
is worthy of his hire,' and that ' they who preach the
Gospel should live of the Gospel.' That your petitioners
do not wish it to be thought that they are the only per-
sons thus painfully suffering from inadequate incomes in
this diocese, or in the Church generally ; for they are
aware that there is a numerous, a respectable, and a hard-
working body of their clerical brethren similarly and un-
fortunately circumstanced, to whom, if an act of justice
and benevolence similar to that for which they themselves
here humbly pray were extended by your Honourable
House, your petitioners would sincerely rejoice. That
your petitioners respectfully and humbly beseech your
Honourable House to take their condition into your seri-
ous consideration, and to be pleased to adopt such mea-
sures for their pecuniary relief and support as in your
deliberate wisdom and kindness you may deem the most
advisable. And your petitioners will ever humbly pray,
&c."

THE RETURNS FROM THE BOARD OF TRADE for the
month ending on the sth of May were issued on Saturday
week. As compared with the returns for the corresponding
month of last year, there is a decrease of £112,079 in the
declared value of exportations. The principal articles in
which there has been a decrease are cotton manufactures,
to the extent of £130,401; hardwares and cutlery,X2o,629;
machinery, £23,921 ; metals, £13,441 ; and woollen ma-
nufactures, £25,699. The aggregate value of our exports
during the first four months of 1852 has been £21,844,663,
against £21,904,338 in the like period of 1851, showing a
decrease of £59,675, which has occurred in the following
order :

Month ending

Increase

Decrease.
X.

February 5
March 5 ..
April 5 ..
May 5..
As compared, however, with the same period of 1850,
there is an increase of £1,776,664. As regards imports
there is nothing to call for particular remark.
BREACH OF PROMISE OF MARRIAGE.—III'the Court of
Queen's Bench, on Thursday, an action was brought by
the widow of an officer of the Austrian service, to recover
compensation in damages for a breach of promise of mar-
' "endant, an elderly gentleman, who
ars a clerk in the Bank of England,
with grown up children,
into any promie. The
Mr. and

613,274

had been

and who

pleaded
plaintiff

er en te

,eetable parent

Mrs. H
named

married, first to a gentleman
ied out, unfortunately for her,
I habits, which led him into

to be a man of

mprovk

ho ultimate

:race o
1. Bcf

I with Zvi