6-7 WILLIAM 4, c. 67; and parts of 2-3 VICTORIA, c. 55). These temporary provisions suspending appointments in the latter dioceses were extended until August 1, 1842, but the Bishop of Bangor was to be permitted to make certain appointments and perform his ordinary episcopal duties in the meantime.

A.D. 1842.-A measure (5-6 VICTORIA, C. 112) followed in 1842 suspending any appointments to ecclesiastical preferments in the dioceses of St. Asaph and Bangor until October 1, 1843. It recited and continued the two Acts passed in 1835 (5-6 WILLIAM 4, c. 30) and 1836 (6-7 WILLIAM 4, c. 67), which had suspended appointments generally until Parliament should have had time to consider the reports of the Commissioners appointed as to ecclesiastical duties.

A.D. 1843.-In 1843, by 6-7 VICTORIA, C. 77, the suspensory measures relating to the dioceses of St. Asaph and Bangor were repealed, and the general Acts establishing the Ecclesiastical Commission were extended to these sees. Four resident canons were to be appointed in each of the WELSH dioceses of St. Asaph, Bangor, St. Davids, and Llandaff. These canonries were to be in the direct patronage of the Bishops. Two of them were to be permanently annexed to the archdeaconries in the respective dioceses. Houses of residence were to be provided for the canons of St. Asaph, Bangor, and Llandaff, and also for the Dean of Llandaff. The archdeaconry of St. Asaph was no longer to be held by the Bishop of St. Asaph, and the archdeaconries of Bangor and Anglesea were to be dissevered from the bishopric of Bangor. The archdeaconry of Llandaff was to be separated from the deanery of Llandaff. Out of the proceeds of the revenues of ecclesiastical estates in the Principality of WALES, vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, provision was to be made for the maintenance of a clergyman, being a native of the Principality, to officiate in WELSH in a church or chapel within London or Westminster or the suburbs for the

performance of divine service according to the Church of England. More favourable provisions were made for St. David's College at Lampeter.

A.D. 1847.-On February 10, 1847, a Commission was appointed to consider the state of the bishoprics in England and WALES. This Commission reported, and some of its recommendations became law in the same year (10-II VICTORIA, C. 108). The dioceses of St. Asaph and Bangor were continued as separate bishoprics, and the bishopric of Manchester was founded. The Commission had recommended taking away one bishop from NORTH WALES and joining the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor, and had recommended also that one bishop should be taken away from SOUTH WALES, and that Llandaff should be united with the see of Bristol. There was a strong feeling displayed in WALES against these proposals, with the result that these particular recommendations were omitted from the Act. Under section 2, a very important provision relating to the constitution of our country became law, viz., that the number of Lords Spiritual then sitting and voting as Lords of Parliament was not to be increased by the creation of the new bishopric of Manchester. A protest was also entered in the House of Lords against the procedure established by this section for filling up vacancies among the Lords Spiritual. This protest was made by a few of the lay and spiritual lords, because "it constituted a dangerous precedent, and was at variance with the principle of an hereditary peerage, and contrary to the privileges of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal."

A.D. 1863.-By an Act (26–27 VICTORIA, c. 82) the WELSH Bishops were empowered to make provision for English services in certain parishes of WALES. As the law stood, in all parishes in WALES in which WELSH was the tongue commonly spoken by the people the whole Divine Service was required to be used and said in the British or WELSH tongue. It was provided that wherever any ten or more

inhabitants in any parish, district, or place in WALES should certify in writing to the Bishop that they were desirous of having Divine Service performed and the Sacraments administered in English, and undertook to provide a building to be used as a chapel for the same and a spiritual person to officiate therein, then the Bishop was to be entitled to license such chapels and ministers when nominated by the incumbent of the parish. If the incumbent refused or failed to nominate the minister, the Bishop could do so. The licensed building was not to be a parochial chapel, except with the consent of the incumbent, whose rights as to fees and emoluments were not to be affected by the passing of this Act.

A.D. 1837.-By section 23 of 7 WILLIAM 4 and I VICTORIA, c. 22 (1837), regulating the registration of marriages, it is provided that in all places where the WELSH tongue is commonly spoken the solemn declaration to be used in the celebration of marriages before the Registrars is to be truly translated into the WELSH tongue and furnished to every Registrar throughout WALES, and that it is lawful to use that translation in all places where the WELSH tongue is commonly spoken.

THE TURNPIKE ROAD ACTS IN SOUTH WALES.

A.D. 1844.-An Act (7-8 VICTORIA, c. 91) to "consolidate and amend the laws relating to Turnpike Trusts in SOUTH WALES" became law in 1844. Its title does not indicate the fact that stormy events led to its enactment. In 1789, the SOUTH WALES Association for the improvement of roads had been formed at Swansea, its principal object being to obtain a complete amendment of the highway road between the New Passage over the Severn at Newnham and Hubberston in Pembrokeshire, with an improvement of the road from Chepstow to Gloucester, in order to provide good communication between SOUTH WALES and London. During the reign of GEORGE the Third a number of private

Acts of Parliament were successfully promoted by persons who were interested in Turnpike Trusts, giving them statutory powers to make and regulate roads. The Trustees of these Turnpike Roads in SOUTH WALES were authorized to raise moneys by tolls sufficient to pay the interest upon the debts incurred in making the roads and keeping them in repair. In order to raise this money tolls had been largely increased; payments of these charges were frequently demanded; side-bars on the roadsides had been multiplied improperly, and every means adopted by the trustees to swell their revenues. Strangers to the localities, who were professional toll renters, became tenants of the gate houses, farming the tolls, and exacting the utmost from the discontented public. Many practices were followed by these persons which no law could justify. In Carmarthenshire alone there were twelve different Trusts, and although the amount of the tolls was limited by the statutory powers given, there was no such limit as to the number of gates at which they could be levied on the public. No reason existed why the Turnpike Trustees should not, if they so desired, have established a turnpike gate and demanded a toll at intervals of one hundred yards throughout the county of Carmarthen. They interpreted and administered the law as they thought fit, and there was no appeal from their decisions.

Resistance to the payment of such tolls broke out in Carmarthenshire in the spring of 1843 on the riotous demolition of some of the turnpike gates. The Trefechan gate in the Whitland Trust was first attacked. From this district the resistance spread to the other counties of SOUTH WALES. The leader of the movement concealed his identity under the name of "Rebecca"; his followers called themselves the "Children of Rebecca" in allusion to the Scriptural text, "Let thy seed possess the gates of those which hate them." Parties of five or six hundred men, mostly mounted, armed with pickaxes, sledges, hatchets, and guns, rioted through the

counties of Carmarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan, and parts of Radnor, Brecon, and Glamorgan. They were headed by their leader, who was mounted; they were disguised in female attire, with blackened faces. So well did the rioters keep counsel and so secretly did they manage their forays that, in spite of the efforts of the local magistrates, assisted by large bodies of military sent into the district, no effectual check was put upon their proceedings for months.

Although the Rebecca riots are chiefly remembered in connection with WALES, it is extremely interesting to note that nearly one hundred years earlier similar disturbances took place in England, where turnpikes had been first established. In August, 1749, a great number of people in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, some disguised in women's clothes, headed by leaders on horseback with blackened faces, had attacked the turnpike gates in those counties. They were called "Jack a Lents." The course of these disturbances was much like that of the later Rebecca riots of the nineteenth century in WALES.

But the turnpike gate extortions in SOUTH WALES were not the only cause of these riots. A Royal Commission was appointed on October 7, 1843, to make a full and diligent inquiry into the state of the laws, as administered in SOUTH WALES, which regulated the maintenance of turnpike roads and bridges. The Commission made their report on March 6, 1844, and from it we learn that there was deepseated agrarian discontent in SOUTH WALES, not only at the exactions of the Turnpike Trusts, but also in connection with the costly administration of the poor law and the high salaries of poor law officers; the vexed question of tithes and the increased amounts payable for tithes under the Tithes Commutation Act of 1836; the permanent increase of county rates; the fees of Justices' clerks and the administration of justice by the magistrates; the cost of recovering small debts; and the position of the Established Church of England in the districts. The Commission, while calling