all purposes relating to church rates (including the attending at vestries and voting thereat) in the place in which such occupier would have stood."

We have now to deal with statutory church rates, that is to say, with rates levied under particular Acts of Parliament, either public or private, for special purposes, or in fulfilment of contracts, or for the repay-. ment of money advanced upon their security. If the rate, although called a church rate, is, in fact, applied to secular purposes, no religious body can possibly entertain any conscientious reluctance to it; while the payment of rates on which loans have been raised, could not, without great injustice to those to whom the faith of parliament was pledged, have been rendered less imperative than formerly. The Compulsory Church Rates Act has, therefore, expressly maintained in full force and vigour the different classes of rates to which we have just referred.

The second section provides, that "when, in pursuance of any general or local act, any rate may be made and levied which is applicable partly to ecclesiastical pur poses and partly to other purposes, such rate shall be made and levied, and applied, for such last-mentioned purposes only, and so far as it is applicable to such purposes shall be deemed to be a separate rate, and not a church rate, and shall not be affected by this act." Then, on the other hand, it enacts that "where in pursuance of any Act of Parliament a mixed fund, arising partly from rates affected by this act and partly from other sources, is directed to be applied to purposes some of which are ecclesiastical purposes, the portion of such fund which is derived

from such other sources shall be henceforth primarily applicable to such of the said purposes as are ecclesiastical."

Then by clause 3, "in any parish where a sum of money is at the time of the passing of this act due on the security of church rates, or of rates in the nature of church rates, to be made or levied in such parish under the provisions of any Act of Parliament, or where any money in the name of church rate isordered to be raised under any such provisions, such rates may still be made and levied, and the payment thereof enforced by process of law, pursuant to such provisions, for the purpose of paying off the money so due, or paying the money so ordered to be raised, and the costs incidental thereto, but not otherwise, until the same shall have been liquidated : Provided, that the accounts of the churchwardens of such parish in reference to the receipt and expenditure of the moneys levied under such acts shall be audited annually by the auditor of the Poor Law Union within whose district such parish shall be situate, unless another mode of audit is provided by Act of Parliament." The fourth clause declares, that "this act shall not affect any enactment in any private or local Act of Parliament under the authority of which church rates may be made or levied in lieu of or in consideration of the extinguishment or of the appropriation to any other purpose of any tithes, customary payments, or other property or charge upon property, which tithes, payments, property, or charge, previously to the passing of such act, had been appropriated by law to ecclesiastical purposes as defined by this act, or in consideration of the abolition of tithes

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in any place, or upon any contract made, or for good or valuable consideration given, and every such enactment shall continue in force in the same manner as if this act had not passed."

The courts of law never would grant a mandamus to compel the laying of an ordinary church rate; and it is therefore almost unnecessary to say that they will not do so now, when the payment of the rate is perfectly optional with the parishioners. But the case of church rates levied for the repayment of principal and interest, when money has been borrowed, under the 59 Geo. III. c. 34, to rebuild a church, stands on quite a different footing. Then there is a statutory obligation, which is just as binding as any other obligation of the same kind; and accordingly, with respect to such a rate, a mandamus will be issued, directed to the churchwardens and directing them to lay and levy such a rate in accordance with the terms of the act, and in fulfilment of their predecessors contract.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF COUNTY AND BOROUGH RATES.

THE County and borough rates are levied by means of the parochial machinery.

The county rate is raised for, and applied to, the following amongst other purposes :-Repairing county bridges, and highways adjoining; the payment of the expense of "main roads"; the payment of so much of the costs of the county constabulary as is defrayed by the county; the removal of prisoners for transportation; carrying prisoners to gaol; allowance to discharged prisoners; building and repairing houses of correction and shire halls; salary of chaplains and officers, and setting prisoners to work, expenses relating to insolvents, court houses, &c.; providing county lunatic asylums; fees for gaolers, and other officers; burying dead bodies cast on shore; expenses of prosecutions; treasurer's salary, prosecuting vagrants, &c.; procuring copies of the imperial standards of weights and measures; militia charges; and the payment of half the expense of prosecuting masters for ill-treating their parish apprentices.

The assessment of this rate is now regulated by the 15 & 16 Vict. c. 81, and by the Local Government Act, 1888, which transfers to the county council the

powers in reference to the assessment of the county rate vested in the justices by the earlier act. Taking the two acts together their effect is this:-The county council of every county are, from time to time, to appoint a committee to prepare a basis* or standard for fair and equal county rates, which is to be founded and prepared rateably and equally according to the full and fair annual value of the property rateable to the relief of the poor in each parish or extra-parochial place. In order to the preparation of this basis, the committee may direct the overseers, constables, assessors, and collectors of public rates, for any parish, &c., and all others having the custody or management of. any public or parochial rates or valuations of such parish, &c., to make returns to the full and fair net annual value of the whole or any part of the property within the parish, &c., liable to be assessed to the county rate, with the date of the last valuation for the assessment of such parish, &c. The overseers, &c., are to lay their returns before the vestry, or other meeting of the inhabitants, at which the public business of the parish, &c., is commonly transacted, before presenting them to the committee. The latter have the power to call upon the overseers, &c., to produce all documents relating to the assessment of the property in the several parishes, and also to be examined on oath touching the same. Whenever the committee alter the basis of assessment, [and the new basis or

*The "basis" is a statement of the rateable value of the property in each parish. The county rate is, as we shall see presently, charged upon each parish in proportion to the value of the property therein contained.