The Stockton Examiner, and South Durham and North Yorkshire Herald. — 1879-04-26 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE BISHOP OP EXETER ON THE SALE  OF LIVINGS.  At his Visitation Court, at Honiton, on Wed- The Yoe Ynrk TilPleS of the 11th inst. gives details nesday, the Bishop of Exeter denounced in strong of the execution at Windsor. Vt., on the previous day terms the practice of the sale of advowsons. To say of John B. Phair, for the murder of Mrs. Ann Freese, that the sale of livings did not lower the position of of Rutland. The crime was committed on the 9th of the clergyman was to contradict universal experience. June 1874. An intrigue had existed between the Even if all other evil consequences could be put out decetsed woman and the prisoner, and on the morning of consideration the main evil of degradation of of that day her house was found to be on fire, while Church patronage, and the resultant degrading of the in one of the dressing-rooms was discovered the body common notions of clerical duty remained the same. of the woman herself, with her throat cut, and several He suggested that they might succeed in getting per- stabs about the neck. On the 11th of June Phair mission from patrons to transfer their trust to some was arrested ;in September he was tried and convicted public authority with power to the authority to raise and was sentenced to be hanged upona date so remote the money necessary to recoup patrons by mortgage as the 91h of April, 1877. A petition for a new trial on the living, and to charge the living with gradual was unsuccessful, and Phair was taken to the State repayment of the principal and interest of the loan. l'rison, to wait execution. As the time approached, It would not, he thought, be difficult in such a diocese several efforts were made to "get him off," the evito create a public body of trustees to take over such dence on which he was convicted being circumstanintronage, and to hold it on behalf of the church at tial ; and on the very day of the execution, after the large. In this way livings might be set free from gallows had been prepared, a respite for a month the liability to sell in the future. The difficulty , arrived, on the ground of newly discovered evidence. would be easier dealt with if there were a clearly The respite was then further extended to the 4th of and decidedly expressed disapproval of the present April, in the present year, during which time the new systeea evidence was investigated. In the meantime a new Act had been passed by the Legislature giving conA DUKE AND DUCHESS IN A WORKHOUSE demned criminals an opportunity of presenting alleged new evidence to two judges of the State The Rev. John Gott, Vicar of Leeds, writes to the Supreme Court. By this law l'hair's case came Tire-,:—" The Due de Columbier and his wife an before the court on application for a new trial, but inmates of our Leeds Workhouse. I have, with my after examination of the evidence to be adduced to it solicitor, Mr. Ford, examined a box of deeds and let- was pronounced unimportant, and a new trial was tore belonging to him; we have no doubt that he it refused. On the :3rd instant, the day before the the person he represents himself to be. He bears the expiration of the respite, a further extension of the family name of Mouchat. His title was in Neufchatel time for six days was granted, and this last respite since ceded to Prussia. At the age of 86 his memory, elapsed on the 10th instant. Phair was ex.. happily, is too imperfect to be of much service ix cotes' for his crime nearly five years after receiving tracing the history of the family, but tam inclinec sentence of death. to think they emigrated to England at the revocatiot of the Edict of Nantes. His father received a pansies EXTRAORDINARY RELIGIOUS CELEBRAfrom the Prussian Government until his death, ant