THE RURAL 
ABATTOIRS. 
ABATTOIRS. Public slaughter-houses, first 
established in Paris in 1810, but not brought into 
full operation until 1818. They are without the 
barriers, on the north and south sides of the city. 
All the butchers of Paris—now exceeding 500 in 
number—are required to prepare their meat at 
the abattoirs, under a heavy penalty. The fee 
charged in 1843, was 6 francs for each ox, 4 for a 
cow, 2 for a calf, and 10 cents for a sheep. 
ABBEY-LANDS. Lands which formerly be- 
longed to monastic establishments. They com- 
prise a large proportion of the surface of Great 
Britain and Ireland. They often excel the lands 
which surround them, in both fertility and 
beauty; and those of England possess interest 
to the farmer, for their general exemption from 
the payment of tithes. Some of the abbey-lands, 
as held by their original monastic proprietors, 
were tithe-free by real composition ; some, by 
the Pope’s bull of exemption; some, by unity of 
possession,—or in consequence of both the lands 
and the rectory of a parish belonging to the 
monks ; some by prescription, having been al- 
ways in spiritual hands, and never having paid 
tithes, according to the maxim, ecclesia decimas 
non solvit ecclesie; and some, by virtue of the 
constitutional character of the peculiar monastic 
order to which the monks belonged. Exemption, 
up to the time of the Reformation, rested directly 
on some one of these grounds; but, since the 
Reformation, it rests on them-only through the 
medium of a special act passed in the 31st year of 
the reign of Henry VIII. That act, says Black- 
stone, “enacts that all persons who should come 
to the possession of lands of any abbey then dis- 
solved, should hold them free and discharged of 
tithes, in as large and ample a manner as the 
abbeys themselves formerly held them. And 
from this original have sprung all the lands 
CYCLOPEDIA. 
ABBEY-LANDS. 
possession, prescription, or constitutional charac- 
ter of peculiar order, | this is now a good prescrip- 
tion de non decimando. But he must show both 
these requisites: for abbey-lands, without a spe- 
cial ground of discharge, are not discharged of 
course, neither will any prescription de non deci- 
mando avail in total discharge of tithes, unless 
it relates to such abbey-lands.” 
The act above referred to, however, [31° Henry 
VIII. ¢, 13,] did not actually dissolve the monas- | 
teries ; but, after reciting that a great number 
of religious houses had been voluntarily surren- 
dered to the king, it invests them, as well as all 
houses afterwards to be surrendered or dissolved, 
with all their sites, possessions, &c., in the king | 
and his successors. It was the policy of the 
court to persuade or terrify the occupants of re- 
ligious houses into the appearance of a voluntary 
surrender of their possessions. 
There are also in Scotland some lands which 
are tithe-free. These lands are technically said 
to be held cum decimis tnclusis et nunguam antea 
separatis, and, in order to secure the enjoyment 
of the exemption, must be so described in title- 
deeds dated before the act of annexation 1587, 
c.29, After the Reformation, the crown claimed 
right to the whole revenues of the regular clergy, 
and to the estates of bishops and chapters, and 
also'to all benefices which were under ecclesias- 
tical patronage; and early in the reign of James 
VI. grants had been made by the king or the 
regents of much of the property so acquired, and 
particularly of the abbacies and priories, to noble- 
men and others. These grantees were called 
lords-of-erection when the estates bestowed on 
them were erected into temporal baronies, and 
titulars when they merely received heritable 
rights to the teinds. After the passing of the 
act of annexation in 1587, c. 29, whereby the 
which, being in lay hands, do at present claim | temporalities of benefices were inalienably an- 
to be tithe-free; for if a man can show his lands 
‘to have been such abbey-lands, and also imme- 
morially discharged of tithes by any of the means 
nexed to the crown, it was no longer entitled to 
make such erections. James VI., nevertheless, 
continued to make new grants out of church- 
efore-mentioned, [real composition, bull, unity of | benefices. These were all declared to be void, 
A 
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