114. —. Select Vestries. [Aveust, 
merely annual—the election of the members is reposed in the inhabitants 
generally in vestry assembled—and before these a summary of the trans- 
actions, together with all the accounts of the vestry, is strictly required 
to be laid in the months of March and October of every year. 
The constitutions of the latter--those which exist by local acts—(and 
with them it is we have to deal), of course, display some variety in their 
details ; but the black-letter of close corporations is the character in 
which all are inscribed. Self-election, self-accountability, self-aggran- 
disement, are their prominent features; and, were the objects of their 
enactments to be collected from their results, the appropriate title of 
such would be—“< An Act for encouraging the Mismanagement of 
Parish Affairs, and promoting sinister Interests in the Vestrymen.” 
Exposed to their almost indefinite taxation, in few instances have the 
parishioners the poor privilege of appointing the parties by whom they 
are to be taxed. Thus, by the 10 Ann., c. 11, s. 20, power having been 
given to the commissioners for the erection of fifty new churches in Lon- 
don and Westminster, appointed thereunder to convert into distinct 
parishes the district for each church, the appointment of the vestrymen 
for every such parish is delegated to them. It is true that a preliminary 
consent is required to the exercise of their power; but from whom will 
it be supposed this consent is to proceed? Absolutely, not from the 
parishioners, the management of whose own affairs is thus forced out of 
their hands; but from the bishop or ordinary, who, God knows, are too 
much occupied in collecting the revenues of the church to leave thenr 
much time to examine into the qualifications of vestrymen. Nor was it 
even intended that this sorry check should extend beyond the original 
constitution of the body. When once established, all power of future 
replenishment is quietly left to itself. Thus, again, with the Spitalfields 
Act, the 2d Geo. II., c. 10, the rector, churchwardens, overseers, and all 
other persons who have served or fined for those offices, are, so long as 
they continue householders within the parish and pay the poor-rate, 
declared to be vestrymen for the time being. “ All other persons who 
have served or fined for those offices,” undoubtedly sounds like an 
approximation to an open system. But it so happens that the original 
nomination to these offices lies only with the vestrymen ; and as no man 
can serve who is not first nominated, and no man is like to be nominated 
who is not like to prove a good vestryman, it is obvious this leaves the 
power of self-perpetuation pretty nearly as perfect as it exists under the 
operation of the statute of Ann. It is necessary to add, that, when once 
appointed, they are generally appointed for life. 
Thus, self-elected, these petty oligarchies are compelled to render no 
account of their government. .An auditor of accounts does, indeed, 
sometimes figure as a part of the establishment ; but the auditor, instead 
of being the accountable servant of the public, is simply a component 
member of the body. In rendering an account of their stewardship to. 
him, the parties to account may indeed acquire the opportunity of 
placing before themselves, in a penitential review, the items of therown _ 
extravagance ; but facilities in obtaining absolution conduce only to — 
greater offences ; and, indeed, if the course of one father confessor is to 
be taken as the sample of that of the rest, the confession is not conducted 
with the strictest regard to particularities; for, at a meeting of the 
parishioners of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, at which some most profligate 
articles of expenditure on the part of the select were dragged to light, 
the auditor himself admitted that he had audited the accounts in question, 
ie a ee ee 
