OUR HIGHWAYS. 25 



were fixed ; and, having said thus much, it is scarcely 

 necessary to add that the discussions on financial 

 questions often waxed very warm, as I have men- 

 tioned, on the subject of highways, and rows at 

 vestries were quite proverbial. One curious circum- 

 stance in connection with the making of poor-rates 

 may perhaps be unknown to many persons intimately 

 connected with poor-law administration at the present 

 time. All poor-rates were, by Act of Parliament, to 

 be published by notice jn the church on the next 

 Sunday after the rate had been allowed by the magis- 

 trates, and no rate was valid until such notice had 

 been given ; accordingly, the parish clerk used to 

 read out from his desk in the church, during the 

 morning service, notice that a rate for the relief of 

 the poor had been made. This practice, however, was 

 altered by an Act of Parliament passed in the first 

 year of the present reign, which substituted the 

 aflSxing written or printed notices on the church 

 doors for the public reading out in church. 



As regards the powers of parish surveyors to 

 make rates, it was usual, but not necessary in order 

 to make it legal, for the surveyor to submit a state- 

 ment of the amount he proposed to raise or required 

 to the vestry ; but, unlike the overseers, he was 

 restricted by the Highway Act as to the extent to 

 which he could tax the parishioners, which directed 



