The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-07 00:00:00

CHI3ItCH RATES

The strenuous opposition which has been afforded to the
imposition of a church-rate in the parish of Braintree, in
Essex, has formed an epoch in the ecclesiastical history of
England. It served to awaken churchwardens to theirduties,
and to the proper modes of carrying them out, while it gave
an opportunity to the law to revive and spread abroad among
the people, in the most emphatic terms, the obligation of
each parish to repair its church ; so that there is not left the
slightest loop-hole wherein ignorance and obstinacy may
shelter themselves. The opposition to the rate in question
was indeed successful, but the conquest was of a truly Pyrrhic
character. The Court of Exchequer Chamber, sitting "in
error" from the Court of Queen's Bench, decided that the
particular rate was bad, because the churchwardens had made
it of their own accord, and without the intervention of a
parish meeting, the majority of a former meeting having re-
jected the rate proposed by the officers. Such was the
abstract point there decided ; but Lord Chief Justice Tindal,
in delivering the judgement of his learned brethren, affirms,
in the most positive language, the common-law obligation on
the part of the parish to repair the church, while it is left as
a matter on which very little doubt would exist, whether the
churchwardens by the assistance of the minority at a parish
meeting, may not legally make a rate in spite of the factious
opposition of the majority. This decision has been followed
up by others, and especially by one within the last few days,
where Dr. Lushington, in the Consistory Court, expressed
himself in the following tes ms

" The parishioners of the whole parish are bound to repair
that church ; that is, the body of it ; and this obligation was
imposed, not by ecclesiastical law, but by custom, by the
common law of England, recognised by various statutes. It
is not the ecclesiastical law which imposes such burdens ;
for, by the ancient ecclesiastical law, it was to be defrayed
out of the ecclesiastical profits. Neither could the ecclesias-
tical law have produced any such effect here. Unless recog•
nised by common law, or enacted as law by statute, it was
and is wholly inoperative in this country. This obligation to
repair, as imposed by common law, is recognised by all the
common-law authorities, by Lord Coke, and, indeed, before
his time in other courts ; but by Lord Coke and by all au-
thorities who followed him, down to and including Lord
Chief Justice Tindal, and the judges of the Court of Ex-
chequer Chamber, as expressed in their judgment in Veley
against Burder.' The obligation is further recognised by
various statutes, from the time of Edward the First down to
the present day. It is again recognised in all the acts of
Parliament of modern times."

When we see that the opposition to Church-rates has pro-
duced such a fruit as this, that it has succeeded in eliciting
not only a judgment in favour of their legality, but that it
has demonstrated a method of making and enforcing them in
spite of itself, we do not think that Church-loving England
has been laid under an obligation far heavier to dissent than
that from which dissent so vainly seeks to disentangle itself
by that opposition. There was a tune when great doubts
were entertained as to the power of the churchwardens, when
they had to deal with a majority of sturdy Dissenters, bent
upon throwing every impediment in the way of their office.
The difficulty, however, has now vanished, and dissent itself
has evoked a sentence from the Bench which will for ever
put an end to parochial declamation. The race of " village
H AMPDEN'S" will soon become extinct, for of what avail
will it be for them to attend vestry meetings, and make fierce
harangues, when the churchwardens, and one good man and
true, will sit quietly by, and after the fuss is over, proceed to
make a rate according to the exigency of the time.

ROMANTIC STORY

(From the Weatord Independent.)

The following communication, bearing a real signature,
which we suppress, at the request of the writer (who alleges,
as his reason for making such request, that he is intimately
acquainted with the parties), has dropped in our letter-box.
Although it borders rather on the marvellous—he who would
perceive " Helen's beauty in a bower of Eeypt" often cuts as
Quixotic a figure in love's annals as .the hero of our tale.
The principal discrepancy of the narrative, in our opinion,
rests on the extraordinary belligerent propensities of all the
parties—scarcely one of them escaping intact. Most persons
must have heard of the two cats, whose pugnacity was not
satiated untill they ate each other to the tails—but let our
informant speak for himself :