TITLE PAGE OF CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS, 1596-7, WITH THE ARMS OF THE BREWERS' COMPANY AND BAKERS' COMPANY, OF WHICH THE ACCOUNTANTS APPEAR RESPECTIVELY TO HAVE BEEN MEMBERS. [At this period an extra fee was charged for interments aften ten o'clock, torchlight funerals being then "fashionable" among the well-to-do. Pope alludes to the custom in the lines "When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The risk and inconvenience of mourners' lights being taken into churches led to the practice being prohibited. Searchers" were employed by the Vestry to see that the body bore no marks of foul play, and "plumpers were called in by the relatives "to bedizen the body," and to make what the ladies of the day used to call a charming corpse." As many as thirty men were sometimes engaged to assist at one of these dismal pomps, and as much as half a hundredweight of candles, costing £7 or £8, would be used at one procession. On the other hand the bearers were forbidden to wear their silk bands at pauper funerals, and a cloth pall inscribed, “Buried at the expense of the parish," instead of the velvet pall, was used on such occasions. This stigma was happily discontinued in 1807.] 130 Churchwardens' Accounts ... 1749 142 143 ... ... ... 1827 to 1847 [There are no churchwardens' accounts for St. Margaret's deposited at the muniment room after this last-mentioned date. The churchwardens having become divested of the miscellaneous powers and duties beyond those relating to the affairs of the church, the accounts have, by this time, become devoid of special interest. They merely give the particulars of the church collections, and of the application of the moneys so received to the maintenance of the fabric, or to the funds of the schools or societies connected with the establishment.] 143A Churchwardens' Accounts (St. John)* ... 1729 to 1733 This short series of accounts is complete, from the consecration of St. John's Church in 1728 to the end of 1868, since which time the accounts have not been deposited with the Vestry [The burial ground of the parish having been closed by an Order in Council in 1853, the accounts for the last few years contain no entries relating to interments. They are, in fact, very uninteresting compared with those of the earlier years noticed in the preceding pages.] OVERSEERS' ACCOUNTS. Next in importance to the long series of records just passed, the Overseers' Accounts deserve a prominent place. Not only do they reflect something of the importance of the office, but, identified as that office was for upwards of three centuries with the relief of the poor, the condition of the people in bygone times can scarcely escape notice as the accounts are opened to view. And it is remarkable that while they tell of the poor law administration under circumstances widely different from those of to-day, they also tell of conditions which repeat themselves with remarkable similarity of detail. Few, indeed, of the secular institutions of the country can lay claim to such a unity of design and a continuity of action on its original lines. It is not proposed, however, to encumber these pages with a history of the poor law or of the office of overseer. To do so would necessitate a review extending over five hundred years, for as early as 1388 (12 Richard II., cap. 7) an Act was passed for the repression of mendicancy. The earlier Acts which followed aimed no farther than this; and those passed in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. were merely directed to the regulation of begging by the impotent poor and, at the same time, to increase the severity of the punishments for vagrants, "sturdy beggars" and those "whole and mighty in body." These evidences of "man's inhumanity to man" must be passed over, though it is impossible to avoid noticing that the profession of a beggar, being countenanced and provided for by the Statute law, carried with it no disgrace. This will probably have been inferred from the items in the Churchwardens' Accounts for the years 1621 (p. 64) and 1628 (p. 56) already extracted, and from the fact that the clergy, and the scholars of the two Universities, were frequently found soliciting alms, and were made the subjects of special enactments in an Act passed in 1531. The overseer, under the style of collector," was first called into existence by sec. xiv. of 27 Henry VIII., cap. 12 (1536). This Act, which was really the commencement of the present poor law system, prohibited the administration of relief otherwise than through common gatherings," the foundation of the subsequent compulsory rate, and added whipping, ear-cropping, and death to the brutal punishments already in force. Numerous other measures were adopted in the reigns of Edward VI. and Philip and Mary; but it was under Elizabeth that a more humane system was inaugurated, though whipping and "stockynge" were not entirely abolished. This brief sketch is thus brought to 1561, the year in for custody. The volume No. 143B covers the period in which the church was undergoing reconstruction after the fire of 1742, and that numbered 143c comprises the time in which the satirist Churchill was lecturer and curate : Who born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. A sketch of this talented but unfortunate man's career was given in the Parochial Memorials of |