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refuse to perform what is before required, therein to remain till they yield obedience fully to the conditions prescribed at large.

3. Overseers dying to be replaced by two justices, and executors to account in forty days to a remaining overseer or churchwarden.

4. Persons aggrieved by any rate or assessment made for the relief of the poor, or shall have any material objection to any person or persons being put on, or left out of such rate or assessment, or to the sum charged on any person or persons therein, or shall have any material objection to such accounts as aforesaid, or any part thereof, or shall find him, her, or themselves aggrieved by any neglect, act, or thing done, by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, or by any of his Majesty's justices of the peace; it shall, and may be lawful for such person or persons, in any of the cases aforesaid, giving reasonable notice to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish, township, or place, to appeal to the next Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the county, riding, &c.

5. The justices there assembled are to receive such appeal, and to hear and determine the same, notice being given in due time. Reasonable costs to be allowed, as stated in an act made to remedy defects in the Poor Laws, in the 8th and 9th of William III.

6. Justices of the peace may quash the old rates, or make new rates and assessments, from which no appeal can be had, as it had been formerly held, from rates and assessments, the justices of the peace are required to amend the same, where they shall see just cause to give relief, without altering such rates and assessments, with respect to other persons mentioned in the same; but if, from an appeal from the whole rate, it shall be found necessary to quash or set aside the same, then, and in every such case, the said justices shall, and are hereby required, to order and direct the churchwardens and overseers of the poor to make a new equal rate or assessment, and they are required to make the same accordingly,

7. The next clause is for the more effectual levying money assessed for the relief of the poor, either in the parish where due, or any other part of that, or other county where the party is removed to, or has property, subject however to an appeal to the Quarter Sessions.

8. A clause is afterwards inserted to prevent vexatious actions against overseers, who made distresses in such cases.

9. Plaintiffs recovering in any action to have full costs, as in other cases; but they cannot recover for any irregularity, if tender of amends hath been made by the parties distraining, before such actions is brought.

10. Succeeding overseers may levy arrears to reimburse the former.

11. Persons removing out of parishes without paying rates are liable, as also are their successors, in proportion to the time they are occupants respectively, and they are liable to distraint severally.

12. All rates and assessments hereafter made for the relief of the poor, are directed by this act to be entered in a book or books, to be provided for that purpose by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of every parish or place, who shall take care that such copies be wrote and entered accordingly, within fourteen days after all appeals from such rates are determined, and shall attest the same by putting their names thereto. The books to be carefully preserved by the churchwardens and overseers for the time being, or one of them, in some public or other place in every such parish, &c. whereto all persons assessed may freely resort, and shall be delivered over from time to time to the succeeding church wardens and overseers of the poor, as soon as they enter into their said offices, to be preserved as aforesaid, and shall be produced by them at the General or Quarter Sessions when any appeal is heard or determined.

13. Penalties are prescribed against churchwardens aud overseers, and others, who shall neglect or refuse to obey and

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perform the several orders and directions of this Act, or any of them, where no penalty is before provided by this Act, or shall act contrary thereto. The penalty is stipulated not to exceed £5, nor less than 20s. for every such offence, to be levied by distress and sale of the offender's goods, &c.

14. The power of overseers to be the same as that of churchwardens, where there are none of the latter, and the penalties the same.

[The above is an abstract of an Act passed in 17th George II. cap. 3.]

Act 9th of Queen Anne, cap. 22. Anno 1710.

Entitled an act for granting to her majesty several duties upon Coals; for Building Fifty new Churches in and about the cities of London and Westminster, and suburbs thereof; and other purposes therein mentioned.

The preamble states, that the commons of Great Britain are desirous to aid her majesty's pious intentions to encrease the number of churches in and near the metropolis, for which purpose, they, with the consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, with the approbation of the queen's most excellent majesty, had enacted, that a duty of two shillings upon every chaldron and tun of coals or culm, should be paid from and after the 14th May, 1716, until the 29th September, 1716, and duties in other proportions at certain periods therein mentioned.

It is then stated, that the sums so arising shall be paid into the exchequer, to be appropriated to the building the said churches of stone and other proper materials, with towers or steeples for each, for purchasing sites for the same, and for burying places, and for houses of habitation for the ministers.

The sum of £4,000 to be applied out of the said duties for repairing Westminster Abbey, and £6,000 per annum towards the completion of Greenwich Hospital and its Chapel, and one Church, being one of the fifty to be built at East Greenwich in the county of Kent.

Her majesty was empowered to appoint commissioners for the purpose stated in the act. Money paid into the exchequer by way of loan to bear an interest of 6 per cent. within a certain period. One hundred chaldrons of coals for Greenwich Hospital annually to be exempt from duty. Other provisions are made as to surveyors' and other salaries, &c. under Act of King William III.

Act 10th of Queen Anne, cap. 11th.

Anno 1711.1

Entitled an Act for enlarging the time given to the commissioners appointed by her majesty, pursuant to an Act for granting to her majesty several duties on Coals, for Building Fifty new Churches, &c. and also for giving the commissions farther powers for the better effecting the same, and for appointing monies for building the parish church of St. Mary Woolnoth in the city of London.

The preamble recites the purposes and particulars for which the former act was made, stating that the commissions ap pointed to carry the same into effect found the time mentioned too limited, and they are now empowered to continue their duties until the performance and finishing the building, &c. therein named. They were further empowered to make purchases of lands, and enter into contracts under the provisions of the act. Lands so purchased, with their tenements, &c. were to be conveyed to at least five commissioners.

They were empowered to provide cemeteries for the parishes, even out of their limits, if necessary. Provision is made for receiving loans and paying interest of 6 per cent. and for the treasury to issue money, &c.

The 8th clause is most important as it regards Bloomsbury parish. It enacts, that it shall be lawful for the commissioners, or any five of them, by one or more instrumcnts in writing on parchment under their hands and seals, to be enrolled in the high Court of Chancery, to describe and ascertain the

true limits and bounds of the site of and belonging to each such new church, and house for the habitation of the minister of such new church, and church-yards and cemeteries for each respective parish, and also the district and division of each parish that shall be appointed for every church to be erected or constituted pursuant to this act or the said former act; and every such district or division so set out for a new parish shall, after such enrolment, and the consecration of such new church, be for ever deemed and taken to be of itself a distinct parish to all intents and purposes, excepting as touching the church rates, the relief of the poor, and rates for the highways, as is herein after provided; and the inhabitants within the distinct limits of every such new parish, shall from henecforth be the parishioners thereof, and subject to such taxes, rates, and assessments for the poor, cleansing the strects, and other duties within the said new parish, or the greater part thereof was divided and taken, are subject or chargeable with the same, and to be exempt within the space of one month after the consecration of such new church from the parish whence taken, and from all dependencies and contributions for or in respect thereof, except as is hereby otherwise enacted or provided.

9. The commissioners are in this clause empowered to take a district out of any large parish where any new church shall be made, and add it to a lesser parish adjoining, which shall be deemed part of the parish to which it is added, &c.

10. Enacts that there shall be a rector in every new church, and a perpetual succession of such rectors. The morning preacher in any chapel converted into a new church shall be the first rector. In every other new church the queen shall nominate the first rector, (except Stepney, see 12th of Anne, cap. 17.) The land and hereditaments purchased for such church, &c. the freehold is appointed to be vested in the rectors of such new parish respectively, and he is authorized to

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