Page 199 - Reading Mercury

for the maintenance of the Established Church upwards of £1,700 a year, and yet we
have no suitable provision for a clergyman, no parsonage-house, and our Church is so
dilapidated that the inhabitants cannot resort to it for the celebration of divine worship
with comfort, nor indeed without danger. I have long lived upon terms of intimacy
with the clergyman of the parish, and I should deeply regret saying a syllable
calculated to give him pain. I can bear willing testimony to the benevolence of his
character, but it is impossible for him, or any other human being, circumstanced as he
is, to perform the cure of the parish in a proper manner. The wretched income
appropriated for his benefit operation most prejudicially to his parishioners. He is
compelled to hear the cry of poverty and distress which he cannot relieve, his energies
become paralyzed, and his usefulness as a parish priest in a great measure destroyed.
In the remoter parts of the parish many of the poor maintain themselves by cutting
heath on the commons and making it into brooms, and, having no master to control
them, and no minister capable of administering to their necessities and watching over
their interests, they sink into a sort of sottish brutality, and it may be truly said of
many of them, they eat, drink, and perish almost like the beasts of the field. Thus, in
the midst of a Christian land, possessing a well-endowed establishment, this parish
exhibits an example of practical infidelity which would be a disgrace to any Christian
country.
I earnestly entreat your powerful aid on our behalf, and rest assured your talent and
influence cannot be exerted in a more righteous cause.
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
FRANCIS SOAMES.

th
Sat 24 May (BC)
WOKINGHAM CHURCH
To the editor of the Times
Sir—It is undoubtedly true that the tithes of this parish are resolved by Mr. Jacob, the
lessee of the Dean of Salisbury; nevertheless that circumstances does not absolve the
Dean and his predecessors from responsibility. The Dean is rector of the parish, he
received the emoluments of that office, and with its emoluments he must take his
responsibilities. If the Dean be amenable to no human law, if there be no legal
enactment which will meet the case, surely a strong moral obligation rests upon him
to provide for the cure of this parish—an obligation, undoubtedly, of an imperfect
nature, but, nevertheless, equally as binding and sacred as those duties which are
defined and can be enforced by the law of the land. The value of the tithes has gone
on increasing in proportion to the value of other property, and the fines paid by the
lessee of the tithes for the renewals of the lease it may fairly be presumed have been
raised so as to bear a relative proportion to the value of the tithe, but the stipend of the
perpetual curate has remained fixed and unvaried. Surely the Dean and his
predecessors might have provided for the cure of the parish without impoverishing
themselves. This might easily have been accomplished if they had been content to
lower their fines and to impose a higher rent upon the lessee. For example the last fine
received was £2,200. What could have been easier, had the Dean been so disposed,
than to have reduced his fine to £1,500, and to have increased the rent of his lessee
from £26 18s. 4d. to £70 or £80 per annum, taking the fine himself and appropriating
the increased rent towards the cure of the parish. Thus ample provision would
eventually be made for the minister and the cure of the parish. It may be said that this
plan would interfere with the patronage and property of the Dean. Undoubtedly it
would, and, as I conceive, with perfect fairness. He enjoys the property and patronage

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