as are more immediately connected with tithe rent-charge apportionments.

The main principle of the act is to abolish the render of tithes in kind, and to impose upon the lands which produced them rent-charges varying yearly in amount, according to the average price of corn, during seven years immediately preceding each Christmas.*

For this purpose, two thirds in value of the owners of tithes and tithable lands, in every parish throughout England and

*Every rent-charge at the time of commutation is supposed to be of the value of such quantities of wheat, barley, and oats, as the same would purchase, in case one third part thereof were laid out in wheat, at 7s. 0 d. per bushel, another third part in barley, at 3s. 113d. per bushel, and the remaining third part in oats, at 2s. 9d. per bushel. The amount in money to be paid for the future, in respect of the rent-charge, consists of the value of such respective quantities of wheat, barley, and oats, at the average prices per bushel, which govern the payments for the particular year. It is also to be observed, that the payments in respect of rent-charge take place half yearly.

Wales, may agree to fix the gross amount of rent-charge to be paid for the future in lieu of the tithes of such parish. Should they fail to do so, the commissioners appointed to carry the act into execution t will effect the same object by means of a compulsory award.

This gross rent-charge is afterwards to be apportioned by means of valuers selected by the parties themselves, or by the tithe commissioners, amongst all the tithable lands in the parish to which it applies;

* An exception, however, prevails in regard to the tithes of fish and minerals, and also to personal tithes, none of which can be commuted, except by special agreement. Easter offerings, mortuaries, and surplice fees, throughout any parish, may likewise be specially commuted. When, therefore, throughout these pages the tithes of a parish are referred to, the words are to be understood with these restrictions.

The commissioners may delegate, with a few exceptions, the whole of the powers conferred upon them, to any one of their assistant commissioners; and thus it happens in practice that a compulsory award is invariably made through the agency of an assistant.

and the instrument by which this distribution is effected is by the tithe act called an "Apportionment."

upon

The gross rent-charge for each parish is founded the basis of the average annual receipts of the tithe-owner during the seven years preceding Christmas 1835, subject to increase or diminution to the extent of 20 per cent. As a general rule, therefore, the rent-charge will be high or low throughout any entire parish, as the accidental circumstances occurring within this period may have tended to increase or lessen the payments made on account of tithes.

But it is to be observed, that the apportioning of the rent-charge amongst the lands of a parish usually proceeds upon different principles. The portion with which each person's estate is to be charged will depend not merely upon the tithable produce of his lands, and consequent payments to the tithe-owner, during the seven years of average, but also but also upon the actual pro

ductive quality of the soil.* Hence it will follow, that the amount of rent-charge on one property will be high or low in regard to another; not, as is popularly supposed, in proportion to the rentable value of each, but according to the amount of the titheable produce, which each has been and is capable of yielding.

When a draft of any apportionment has been made, a copy of it is deposited for public inspection within the parish to which it relates. Every landowner who may deem the amount charged upon his lands excessive, or has any other reason for objecting to the apportionment, may then appeal against it before an assistant tithe commissioner, who is specially sent into the parish to adju

*The landowners possess a power of substituting other principles for the guidance of the valuer in making his apportionment; but in practice, this power trenches very little upon the principles of apportionment here expressed, which are those laid down by the act.

dicate thereon, and who will determine the several amounts of rent-charge. After this has been done, the draft apportionment is engrossed on parchment, and confirmed by the tithe commissioners. Two copies of the confirmed instrument of apportionment are then made, and sealed with the seal of the commissioners, one of which is deposited within the parish, and the other is lodged in the registry of the diocese in which the parish is situated. The confirmed instrument of apportionment or either of the sealed copies is thereupon to be deemed satisfactory evidence of the matters to which it relates.

The importance of the instrument of apportionment must therefore be obvious, since it constitutes the title of the titheowner to his rent-charge, and in it the landowner sees at once the amount to which his land is rendered liable. Upon this instrument will depend in a great measure the future law in respect of tithes.