* 
7 
1828.) © Select Vestries: 117 
parish ; but, after three days close search, they lost their labours, though 
they went to divers taverns; and the bill incurred, on this righteous 
occasion, came but to 43/.”* Money has assuredly fallen in value since 
that period ; but we have understood that the amount of the dinner bill in 
this transaction is not very far below the average of the sum at which 
parish officers are willing to take upon themselves the whole support of a 
bastard. The following extract from the parish-books of St. Paul’s, Covent 
Garden, forced from the reluctant vestry, will shew that, after centuries 
of gorging, the appetites of vestrymen have not slackened :— 
Mr. Richardsan’s dinner .....)......0.0c0c-+0e+eeeeeeeee ees £93; & 30 
Messrs. Hodgson and Gann’s Easter dinner............ 47 11 0 
Mr. Joy’s visitation dinner ......0...0eeeeeeeeeeeee cerns 25 8 0 
Wie Macros woken in. see das. |: cdo ameiae Saray soe ifcat & 
Hodgson and Gann’s venison feast ....++c..0seereeeees 30 ..-& DO 
Dinner on auditing accounts............-..ecssee sees eee ll 4 0 
Hodgson and Gann’s dinner on auditing accounts... 40 4 0 
Mr. Richardson’s visitation dinner ........---.+.s+0++++ 22 0 
Mr. Joy’s St. Thomas’s-Day’s dinner .........-.4:--65 2010 0 
Venison feasts may strike our readers as somewhat singular for simple 
vestrymen. Venison, however, is perfectly in keeping with rose-water, 
which another party of select vestrymen seemed to fancy a necessary 
_ subject of expense on a visit they had to perform to a few pauper chil- 
dren at Norwood. At one of these feasts to the Marylebone vestry, the 
bill actually amounted to 452/.!—of which the honest vestrymen carried 
only 93/. to account, under its proper head:—the rest was amusingly 
distributed among the titles “ paving-rate (paving the stomach, we pre- 
sume), clothing and provisions for the poor !”’ Truly, the poor are likely 
to be clad in fine linen and sumptuously fed under the blessed vestry of 
Marylebone! The thirst of vestrymen would seem to attend them even 
into the sacraments of religion. In his late measure for the regulation of 
the Irish “ select,” Sir John Newport informed the House of one parish 
in which, from the year 1812 to the time at which he was speaking, from 
211. to 36/. had been annually charged for wine for the sacramental table. 
Of the great itching for church jobbing displayed throughout the 
whole history of select vestries, the instances are so numerous that our 
only difficulty lies in the selection. The parish of St. Mary-le-bone, and 
one or two parishes in Ireland must serve us as samples. In the first, 
the present rectorial church was, in the year 1813, resolved to be built 
as a chapel, and was accordingly contracted for at 19,8101. It was com- 
pleted to its cupola and vane, when it appears to have flashed across the 
imagination of some sagacious vestryman, that a church was the be- 
fitting thing instead of a chapel. Into achureh it was accordingly voted 
it should be converted, and a church it became ; although to accomplish 
this a considerable part of the finished building was pulled down, and 
the cost, instead of amounting to nineteen thousand and odd pounds, 
just came to 72,8501. When completed no less an adornment would 
suit the magnificence of the vestrymen than a transparency, by West, 
at a cost of 800/., and a figure of Rossi at 3001. In their eagerness 
for a painting of the great artist, however, it seems to have been for- 
gotten that transparencies required light, until when it came to be put 
up, it was discovered they had no place appropriated for it—from some 
eee aT 
* Considerations on Select Vestries, ‘p. }3 ;—a small pamphlet, containing a collection 
of many of the abuses of select vestries. . 
