Official Year - Book of the Church of England, 1897. (S.P.C.K.) — This
volume is full as usual of facts which, taken as a whole, are really surprising, or would be if they were not, so to speak, taken for granted. Two samples may be quoted. In 1896 £1,259,790 was given to various forms of permanent endowment,—i.e., building, &c., of churches, endowment of benefices, building of parsonages, and enlargement of burial grounds; and in 1894 (the last year for which figures are available) £1,179,414 to education. Of this the clergy find a part that is disproportionate to their narrow incomes ; and Sir William Harcourt, who always reminds us of Pope's line about the Monument of London, talks of their " scrambling " for the 6s. grant, and Mr. Lloyd George, who plays the jackal to Sir William's lion, accuses them of cooking " accounts !—The Clergy Directory, 1897 (J. S. Phillips), gives the usual variety of ecclesiastical informa- tion in a convenient form, and at a very moderate price. We must, however, object to the system, or want of system, by which the values of benefices are given. One, with the circumstances of which the writer of this notice is acquainted, is stated at " £200." The nominal value is 2210, with twenty- eight acres of glebe; the gross value (taking the tithe average of the year 1896 and the rent of glebe) £167 ; the net value £123 (deducting rates, Land-tax, insurance of chancel, payment to Queen Anne's Bounty, but not Income-tax, or subscriptions to school, &c.) But £200 represents nothing.—Herbert Fry's Royal Guide to London Charities. Edited by John Lane. (Chatto and Windus.)—The Annual Charities Register and Digest. With an Introduction by C. S. Loch. (Longmans and Co.)—The Australian Handbook for 1897. (Gordon and Gotch.)—The New Zealand Official Handbook, 1896. (Eyre and Spottiswoode.)— Printed by authority, and prepared under instructions from the Hon. R. J. Seddon and E. J. von Dadelszen.
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