Minister may question the parties. Clergyman injuring the re in such case a moiety of the penalty shall not go to the informer, but the whole shall go to the registrar general, or such other person as the commissioner of the treasury shall appoint, for the use of her majesty." And for enabling the particulars of the marriage to be correctly entered, it is declared lawful for the clergyman to ask the parties married the several particulars which are by the act required to be registered touching such marriage, and the party who wilfully makes any false answers to the questions touching any of such particulars is declared guilty of perjury.* Any clergyman who shall refuse, or without reasonable cause omit, to register any marriage solemnized by him, or gister carelessly. who shall carelessly lose or injure the register book, or allow it to be injured while in his keeping, shall forfeit fifty pounds for every such offence." Wilfully. Correcting erroneous entries. And if he shall wilfully destroy or injure such book, or any part or certified copy thereof, or cause it to be destroyed or injured, or if he shall falsely make or counterfeit, or cause to be falsely made or counterfeited, any part of any such register book or certified copy thereof, or shall wilfully insert or cause to be inserted in any register book or certified copy thereof, any false entry of any marriage, or shall wilfully give any false certificate, or shall certify any writing to be a copy or extract of any register book, knowing the said register to be false in any part thereof, he shall be guilty of felony." If, however, the clergyman should discover any error to have been committed in the form or substance of any entry, he may, within one calendar month after discovering such error, in the presence of the parties married, or, in case of their death or absence, in the presence of the superintendent registrar and two other credible witnesses, who shall respectively attest the same, correct the erroneous entry, according to the truth of the case, by entry in the margin without any alteration of the original entry, in which case he must sign the marginal entry, and add the day of the month and year when such correction is made, and must make the like marginal entry, attested in like manner, in the duplicate marriage register book, and also make the like alteration in the certified copy of the register book; or in case such certified copy has been already made, then he must make and deliver in like manner a separate certified copy of the original erroneous * 6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 86, ss. 40, 41. z Sect. 43. u 1 Vict. c. 22, s 28. entry, and of the marginal correction therein made; and if all this be properly done, then he will not be liable to any of the penalties before mentioned.a All the penalties and forfeitures before mentioned which Recovery of pemay be incurred by the clergyman under any of the last- nalties against mentioned provisions as to registration of marriages, unless clergyman. otherwise directed, are made recoverable before any two justices of the peace, upon the information and complaint of any person; and if, upon conviction, the fine or forfeiture, with costs, are not forthwith paid, the same may be levied by distress; and for want of distress the offender may be committed, without bail, for one calendar month, unless the fine, with the charges for recovery of the same, be sooner paid, one moiety of the fine to go to the informer, the other to the registrar general or to such person as the lords of the treasury shall appoint, for the use of his majesty.c b No distress is to be deemed unlawful, nor is any person making it to be deemed a trespasser, on account of any defect or want of form in the summons, conviction, or warrant of distress, or any irregularity afterwards committed by the party distraining. But persons aggrieved by such irregularity shall recover full satisfaction for the special damages sustained in an action on the case." An appeal is given in all cases of summary conviction, Appeal. where the sum adjudged to be paid exceeds five pounds, to the next quarter sessions holden not sooner than twelve days after the day of such conviction." Notice of appeal, in writing, stating the cause and matter thereof, to be given within three days of such conviction, and seven clear days, at least, before such sessions.f The appellant to remain in custody till the sessions, or enter into a recognizance, with two sufficient sureties, conditioned personally to appear at the sessions and try the appeal, abide the judgment of the court, and pay such costs as shall be awarded. The sessions to determine the appeal, and make such order therein as to them shall seem meet, with or without costs; if the appeal be dismissed, or the conviction confirmed, they may order the offender to be punished according to the conviction and pay the costs awarded, and may issue process to enforce the judgment.h And no such conviction or adjudication, made on appeal therefrom, shall be quashed for want of form, or be removed, by certiorari or otherwise, into any of his majesty's superior courts of record; and no warrant of commitment shall be held void by reason of any defect therein, provided it be therein alleged that the party has been convicted, and there be a valid conviction to sustain the same." CHAPTER IV. OF BURIAL, AND OF THE DUTIES OF A MINISTER Mode of dispos ing of the dead. By burial. By burning. Directions by Cyrus as to the disposal of his body. By far the most ancient account of the mode of disposing The earliest authentic records of other nations, which, however, are of a date long subsequent to the above, mention burning as the mode of disposing of the dead; and the practice was undoubtedly both very ancient and widely diffused. The following, on the other hand, are the memorable words of the great Cyrus, as recorded by his biographer, Xenophon; and if they originated in the elegant imagination of the Greek, they are not on that account the less valuable, as showing the opinions which at that age may be supposed to have prevailed either among the Persians or the philosophers of other countries. τὸδ' ἐμὸν σῶμα, ὦ παῖδες, ὅταν τελευτήσω, μήτε ἐν χρυσῶ θήτε, μήτε ἐν ἀργυρω, μήτε ἐν ἄλλω μήδενι, ἀλλὰ τῇ γῇ ὡς τάχιστα z Sect. 47. a Genesis, xxiii. 8. b Mant's Bible. c Tacitus also mentions the Jewish custom of burial, as something different from that of other nations. Corpora condere quam cremare, Hist. 1. 5, c. 5. ἀπόδοτε, τί γὰρ τούτου μακαριώτερον τοῦ γῇ μιχθῆναι, ἢ πάντα μὲν τὰ καλὰ πάνταγε τ' αγαθὰ φύει τε καὶ τρέφει. The above passage is rendered more important by the Opinion of comment made upon it by Cicero. "Mihi quidem anti- Cicero. quissimum sepulturæ genus id videtur fuisse, quo apud Xenophontem Cyrus utitur." The Jewish records were, of course, unknown to the Romans; but as a different practice prevailed, and for many ages had prevailed at the time when Cicero wrote, it may be presumed that he had some authority, now unknown to us, for the opinion which he here expresses. From the words of Cyrus, or Xenophon, it may be Antiquity of the indirectly inferred that some sepulchral chests, or what we use of coffins. call coffins, were at that time in occasional use, where burial was practised, so as to prevent the bodies which were enclosed in them from coming in immediate contact with the earth. It has been thought to be strongly intimated by several passages in Sacred History, that the use of coffins, in our sense of the word, was made among the Jews. But it is almost certain that they were not in use among the two polished nations of antiquity, since in neither of them is there any word which can be synonymous with our word coffin. We have seen that the two most ancient modes of disposing of the remains of the dead recorded by history are by burial and burning; of which burial, among all nations, according to the passage from Cicero above quoted, appears to be the most ancient. The Burial always example of the divine founder of our religion, in the dis- universally adopted among posal of his own person, has established and confirmed Christians. this practice among his followers; and accordingly, from the earliest records of their history, the Christians abhorred the way of obsequies by burning. The practice of sepul- Various places ture has also varied with respect to the places used for used for burial that purpose. In ancient times caves were in high request: times. mere private gardens, or other demesnes of the families, enclosed spaces out of the walls of towns, or by the sides of the roads, and finally, in Christian countries, churches and churchyards, where the deceased could receive the pious wishes of the faithful who resorted thither in the various calls of public worship, and thus the practice generally remains to the present day." at different begun. The practice of burying within the churches did indeed, Burial in though more rarely, obtain before the use of churchyards, churches, when but was by authority restrained when churchyards became frequent and appropriated to that use. For among those d Xenophon de Cyri Instit. H.' e De Legibus, 1. 11, c. 22. The custom afterwards restricted. Vaults in canons which seem to have been made before Edward the Confessor, the ninth bears the title, De non sepeliendo in ecclesiis, and begins with a confession that such a custom had prevailed, but must be now reformed, and no such liberty allowed for the future, unless the person be a priest, or some holy man, who by the merits of the past life might deserve such a peculiar favour." At first it was the nave or body of the church that was permitted to be a repository of the dead, and chiefly under the arches by the side of the walls. Langfranc, Archchancels; when bishop of Canterbury, seems to have been the first who brought up the practice of vaults in chancels, and under the very altars, when he had rebuilt the church of Canterbury, about the year 1075.i introduced. Modern cemeteries. More recently the places of sepulture in our larger and more populous towns have been very commonly in cemeteries, or spots of ground consecrated for that purpose, and unconnected with the church or churchyard, and this practice may be said to be increasing daily. Persons may be Such is the brief history of the varied alterations in the buried in parish mode and places of burial, from which there has arisen a where they die. custom so strong and well established, that it is now the common law of this country, that every person may at this day be buried in the churchyard of the parish where he Principle of the dies.1 The canon law principle was "ubi decimas persolvebat canon law; re- vivus sepeliatur mortuus." A stranger and foreigner therestriction to cases fore would, according to that law, have no absolute right of parishioners, to burial in the parish where he died, except such right as or semble, may ioners. arises out of necessity. And it has been recently stated in a work of much be buried where authority, that the right that a person has to be buried theywere parish- where he dies must be restricted to such as are parishioners at the time." But the authority there referred to will scarcely be found to support the proposition; and it appears that a parishioner dying out of his parish, has a right to be buried where he dies, or, if his relatives wish to remove him, that he has also a right to be buried in the churchyard of his own parish, ubi decimas persolvebat Power of opposing burial of parishioner. vivus." And it has been held consequently that information was grantable against a parson opposing the burial of a parish h Kennett's Par. Ant. 592; 1 Burn's E. L. 256; Gibs. 453. i Kennett's Par. Ant. 593; 1 Burn's E. L. * See words of Lord Stowell in Gilbert v. Buzzard, post. 1 Comyns's Dig., Cemetery B.; Degge, p. 1, c. 12. m Roger's E. L. 136; and see post Lord Stowell in Gilbert v. Bussard. "See post the case of pauper burials. |