years. Interest at 3 per cent. per annum on so much of the capital sum as remains unpaid must be paid with each instalment. All the instalments outstanding may be paid at any time. The Registrar of Land Tax, Inland Revenue, Somerset House, will give information as to redemption. RATES. Duly certified premises exclusively appropriated for religious worship cannot be rated and are not liable to be rated in respect of Poor Rates; but if any part of the premises be not exclusively used for religious worship, or produces any profit or advantage, then rates become payable. It should be observed that the practice of holding entertainments in chapels and school-rooms and making a charge for admission involves the risk of rendering the building so used liable to the payment of Poor Rates. So long, however, as the entertainments or meetings are for charitable purposes, it is not the custom of local authorities to enforce their rights. By 32 & 33 Vict., c. 40, direction is given to the local authority to exempt a Sunday School or a Ragged School from any rate for any purpose for which such local authority has power to levy. A ragged school is a school used for the gratuitous education of children and young persons of the poorest classes, without any pecuniary advantage being derived except by the teachers. TITHES. Payment of Tithe is alleged to be of more ancient date than the Crown or the constitution of Parliament. Canon Stubbs states: "In 787 Tithe was made imperative by the Legatine Councils held in England, which, being attended and confirmed by the Kings and Earldormen, had the authority of witenagemots." Tithes are of three kinds : (1) Praedial; being of the produce of the land, e.g., corn. (2) Mixed; being of the produce of animals. receiving nourishment from land. (3) Personal; being of the produce of the industry of man. By various Tithe Commutation Acts, and finally by the 23 & 24 Vict., c. 39, payment of tithe in kind was abolished, and a corn rent payable in money and permanent in quantity, though fluctuating in value, was established in its stead. At the Reformation no change was made, and the tithes continued to be paid as before. The terms upon which tithes can be got rid of are as follows: When any apportionment of rent charge does not exceed £1, it can be redeemed on payment of 24 times the Annual Charge. When the Annual Charge exceeds £1, a payment equal to 25 years is required. Tithe maps and redemption forms and other information can be obtained from the Board of Agriculture, whose address is St. James' Square, S.W. CHAPTER II. MARRIAGE. Who may Marry. THE first very important point for a minister to consider who is asked to perform the marriage ceremony is whether persons about to marry are within the prohibited degrees of kindred and affinity, or, as they are described in some of the Statutes, the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. These degrees are as follows: A Man may not marry his 1. Grandmother. 2. Grandfather's Wife. 3. Wife's Grandmother. 4. Father's Sister. 5. Mother's Sister. J 6. Father's Brother's Wife. 7. Mother's Brother's Wife. J 8. Wife's Father's Sister. 9. Wife's Mother's Sister. 10. Mother. 11. Stepmother. 12. Wife's Mother. 13. Daughter. 14. Wife's Daughter. (Aunt by blood.) (Aunt by Affinity.) (Wife's aunt.) (Mother-in-law.) (Step-daughter.) Daughter-in-law.) (1) The prohibited degrees include all persons related in lineal consanguinity, whether in the ascending or descending line. (2) Half-blood relationship has the same effect as relationship of the whole blood. (3) As consanguinity and affinity are contracted "as well by unlawful company of man and woman as by lawful Marriage," it matters not whether the Parties are related or connected through lawful Wedlock or otherwise-they are equally restricted from intermarriage within the prohibited degrees. (4) The kindred of the husband are not of affinity to the kindred of the wife; and therefore a man may marry his Brother's Wife's Sister, that is, two brothers may marry two sisters; so also a man born of his father's first wife may marry his Father's second Wife's Daughter by a former husband, that is, a father and his son may marry a mother and her daughter. (5) Consanguinity bars Marriage to the third degree inclusive collaterally, according to the mode of computation adopted by the civil law, which is the basis of the rule in England. The Marriages of relations in the fourth degree (as first cousins), and any subsequent degree, are lawful by the Statute of 32 Hen. VIII. (Hammick's Marriage Law of England, 2nd edition, pp. 37-38). It should be specially noted that the marriage of a man with the sister of his deceased wife is declared by Statute passed in the reign of Henry VIII. |