sale of vaults and burial places: those of chapels built and appropriated under 1 and 2 Wm. IV. c. 38., and 3 and 4 Vict. c. 60, by means of a repair fund, consisting of one sum equal in amount to 5 per cent. upon the original cost of erecting and fitting up, to be secured upon money in the funds, or upon lands; and also a further sum to be reserved annually out of the pew rents of the said chapel after the rate of per cent. of the sum so to be provided as last aforesaid. 5 With respect to new parishes formed under the recent statute of the 6 and 7 Vict. c. 37, they are to be repaired, it is supposed, by rates upon such new parishes: for it is provided, by the 15th S., that every new parish under that act shall be and be deemed to be a new parish for ecclesiastical purposes; and, by the 17th s., that the churchwardens of such new parishes shall do all things pertaining to the office of churchwarden as to ecclesiastical matters in the said new parish. Whether these new parishes remain liable to the repairs of the churches of the original parishes is a question of great nicety. There is certainly some ground for contending that they do remain so liable for there seems to be no express enactment or necessary implica E : tion to the contrary; and the 18th section of the 6 and 7 Vict. c. 37 provides that, until parliament shall otherwise determine, nothing in that act contained shall be construed to affect or alter any rights, privileges, or liabilities whatsoever, ecclesiastical or civil, of any parish, chapelry or district, except as is therein expressly provided. The general conclusion, therefore, (says Prideaux in his practical guide,) to be drawn from the above passages, with reference to the repairs of churches and chapels under the church-building acts, are as follow: 1. Separate and distinct parishes are to be repaired by rates on such separate and distinct parishes. New parishes, under 6 and 7 Vict. c. 37, by rates on such new parishes. 2. District parishes, by rates on such district parishes. 3. Chapels built and endowed by private persons by means of a repair fund vested in certain trustees for the purpose of repair. 4. District parishes remain liable to the repairs of the mother church for twenty years from the respective days of consecration of the district parish churches. 5. Sub-district parishes remain liable to the repairs of the churches of the original districts, and are also liable to the repairs of the churches of the original parishes for twenty years from the date of the consecration of the original district churches; but all liability as to the repairs of the original district churches may be determined by instrument under the hands of the commissioners. 6. District chapelries and chapelries without districts under 58 Geo. III. c. 45 by rates on the parishes or places in aid of which they were built or appropriated. CHAPTER IV. On the Mode of Enforcing the Payment of Church Rates. AT Common Law the proceedings to enforce the payment of church-rates must have been taken in the Ecclesiastical Courts; but, in consequence of the delays and expence incident to suits in these courts, the legislature has in certain cases provided for the recovery of churchrates before Justices of the Peace, where the sum sought to be recovered does not exceed £10., or, in the case of Quakers, £50. Justices of the Peace are not invested with any power to decide the validity of the rate or the liability of the person to pay it, that power still belongs exclusively to the Ecclesiastical Courts. But the sole object of the statutes, which give Justices jurisdiction, is to give a remedy by summary proceeding in the case of a church-rate withheld. If there be no defect apparent on the face of the rate, and the proceedings before the Jus tices are regular, and the person withholding the rate gives no notice of his intention to dispute the validity of the rate or his liability to pay it, the Justices will enter upon the hearing without reference to the validity of the rate: for they have no right, as observed before, to inquire into any matters that may in any degree affect it, or to refuse to proceed to adjudicate upon any objections raised by themselves. An appeal is given, to the Quarter Sessions, to any person who shall find himself aggrieved by the decision of the Justices; and there can be no doubt that under these words the churchwardens are entitled to this appeal, as well as the party from whom the rate is sought to be recovered. The mode of recovery of church-rates from Quakers varies a little. In their case the Justices are to examine the truth and justice of the complaint of the churchwardens: and, as there are no provisions in the several acts for the recovery of church-rates from Quakers to prevent the jurisdiction of the Justices from attaching, it is thought that the Justices have for all purposes as well of law as of fact, complete and (since 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 75, s. 1) exclusive jurisdiction in those cases, subject |