600 LON 
fo called from their (fuppofed) continual refidence in the 
church. The difpoiition of the prebendal flails has been 
fpoken of at p. 410. 
The twelve petty canons are ufually chofen out of the 
minifters and officers belonging to the church. They were 
conflituted a body politic and corporate, by letters patent 
of Richard II. dated in 1399, under the denomina¬ 
tion of “The College of the Twelve Petty Canons of 
Paul’s.” They are governed by a warden chofen from 
among themfelves, and have the privilege of a common 
feal. One of the petty canons is appointed fub-dean, 
by the dean wilh the confent of the chapter and minor 
canons. His office is to fuppiy the dean’s place in the 
choir. Two others are denominated cardinals of the choir, 
to which office they are defied by the dean and chapter, 
and are to fuperintend the duty of the choir. 
Of the management of the choir, and of the claims of 
the finging-boys to have a houfe provided for their 
accommodation, where they might be boarded, and 
properly educated, in grammar as well as in rnufic, we 
have fpoken at p. 414, 15. Since thofe leaves were print¬ 
ed, namely, on the 5th of Auguft laft, the Matter of the 
Rolls has delivered his opinion upon the allegations of the 
Petition which had been prefented to him on behalf of 
thefe Chorifters. We are forry to find, that farther pro¬ 
ceedings mutt be inftituted before the matter can be fully 
decided ; but, as his honour’s opinion will give the reader 
a farther infight into the fubjecl, we (hall fet down the 
fubttance of it, happy to find that fonie enquiry is to be 
entered into, and in anxious hope that more will be done ; 
while the public will fully appreciate the difinteretted zeal 
of an individual, who, at a great expenfe, has undertaken 
the caufe of thefe friendlefs youths. His honour fpoke 
to the following effect : 
“ A very considerable proportion of this petition relates to 
objedts either wholly out of the jurittlidlion of the court, or 
with regard to which thecourt cannot exercife its jurisdic¬ 
tion in thisfummary mode of proceeding. It complains that 
the ttatutesof St. Paul’s Cathedral have not been obeyed ; 
that there are various duties to be performed by the pre¬ 
centor and the almoner, and that thefe duties are not per¬ 
formed at all, or at lealt to the extent, or in the manner, 
enjoined by the ftatures. I conceive that this court has no¬ 
thing to do with the obfervance or non-olfervance of the Jiatutcs 
»f a cathedral, or the performance of the duties of its vari¬ 
ous minifters and officers. It then ftates, that there are 
certain charitable funds, which are not applied to the pur- 
pofes for which they were given according to the inten¬ 
tion of the donors. It isan application to the jurisdiction 
of the court; and, if it had jurifdidion, it would oe a proper 
ground of complaint; but it is not every quettion of cha¬ 
ritable trutt that now can be decided here. The adt gives 
the court juril'didtion to proceed in a fummary manner to 
retlify abufes of a trutt, and to give directions relative to 
the adminiftration of it ; but, where the quettion is as to 
the existence of a charitable trutt, it becomes a quettion 
cf property, arid ought to be decided in the fame Solemn 
manner as every other quettion of property is decided. I 
conceive that in that cafe it is fitting that an information 
ihould be tiled, or that a bill Should be filed, in order to 
litigate the quettion in the fame manner as every other 
quettion of property Should be litigated. Now in this cafe, 
it is the exiftence of the trutt that is the thing in contro- 
verfy between thefe parties. It is attempted to be fnown, 
that the ettates of the dean and chapter, and of the chan¬ 
cellor, are liable to certain burthens and trufts, to which 
within living memory they have never been Subjected. 
Documents . re produced, which are ancient instruments, 
for the purpofe of Showing that grants have been made to 
the chancellor, of lands, tythes, and other property, for 
the purpofe of fupporting and maintaining a School for the 
education of the chorifters; but it does not appear to me that 
thefe documents do at any time dijlinclly Jhow that to have been 
the purpofe of thefe grants. The officer (the registrar to the 
dean and chapter) does not admit the exiftence of any 
D O N. 
fucli trutt; and the quettion is, whether there is any trutt, 
(and that mutt be decided in another form, not upon pe¬ 
tition,) whether the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s can 
be fubjeCted to the payment of any grants to them, or 
any other funis than thofe which they confefs themfelves 
to be bound to pay to the almoner, to be applied for the 
fupport and maintenance of the chorifters. The aCt of 
parliament fays, not that this court is Summarily to decide 
whether an eftate be fubjeft to a charitable trutt, but that, 
in every cafe of a breach, or fuppofed breach, of any trutt 
created for charitable p'urpofes, or where an order of a 
court of equity was deemed neceffary, it Should be lawful 
for the court to proceed upon petition. It affumes the 
exiftence of the charitable trutt as fomething that is ad¬ 
mitted, or as fo plain that there can be no quettion relati ve 
to it. The only cafe in which it is Stated that there is 
any devife or grant to the almoner, for a charitable pur¬ 
pose, is that of the will of Richard de Newport, who p-ave 
certain houfes to the almoner for the maintenance ofone 
or two boys for a period not exceeding two years after 
their voices are broken. The petition ftates that as a 
charitable ufe; but the almoner in his affidavit takes no netice 
whatever of that allegation in the petition ; he does not fay 
whether thefe houfes do or do not exist; whether they are 
or are not liable to the charitable ufe; he pafl'es it by en¬ 
tirely. Now the trutt by the will is plain and exprefs; 
and I find that Mr. Hodgfon (the registrar), in one of his 
affidavits, fays, ‘ he is informed and believes that the almo¬ 
ner of the cathedral, for the time being, has been in the 
habit occafionally of maintaining a chorister or two after 
they have ceafed to Sing in the cathedra! in confequence 
of the breaking of their voices, until they have been other- 
wife provided for.’ This, therefore, Should Seem to be a 
fubfifing and an undifputed charity ; and it appears to me, 
that there mujl be an enquiry what the trufts con ftf of, what are 
the rents and profits, and how thofe rents and profits are applied, 
That is the only part of the petition upon which I can 
make any order, however laudable the motives may have 
been by which this petition has been fet on foot, or how¬ 
ever dtfirable the objedt to which it is applied.” 
With refpedt to the ancient Slate of the pariSlt-priefts 
of London, it is to he obferved that their revenues did 
not arife from a glebe, or from tythe of lands, but from 
cullomary payments iifuing out of the houfes of their pa¬ 
rishioners according to the value of the rents, which were 
called oblations, becaufe they were Small pieces of money 
offered by each parishioner to God and the church, on 
certain holydays. This cuftom had been ufed for many 
ages; but the earlieft document on record for regulating 
the amount of the payments, is the Constitution of Roger 
Niger, bishop of London from 1229 to 1241, whereby The 
citizens were enjoined to pay to their relpedtive pariSh- 
prielts on all Sundays and festivals, the vigils of which 
were to be obferved as featfs, one farthing for every houfe 
at ten Shillings a-year rent ; a halfpenny for one of twenty, 
and for thole of forty Shillings one penny each ; all which 
amounted to about two Shillings and fixpence in the pound j 
for there were but eight apoltles’ days on which thefe 
payments were to be made; and, if any of thefe chanced 
to tall on a Sunday, there was only one payment made 
for that day. This mode of payment continued until the 
13th Richard II. when Thomas Arundel, archbishop of 
Canterbury, published “ An Explanation” of the Consti¬ 
tution made by Niger, in which he added twenty-two 
other faints’ days, by which the payments were increafed 
to three Shillings and five pence in the pound ; this the 
citizens were constrained to pay until the feventeenth of 
Henry VIII. when an act: of parliament was paffed, by 
which the rate was reduced to two Shillings and nine 
pence in the pound. But, although the citizens obtained 
this diminution of the rate, they remained equally unwil¬ 
ling to pay it, and fought to reduce it by various Strata¬ 
gems, particularly by taking their houfes at low nominal 
rents, and making up the difference to the landlord by 
yearly or quarterly lines, annuities, new-years’ gifts, See. 
whereby 
