THE NEWEST METHOD OF EXTORTION.
WE all know that in this country the right to present to a living is property which can be, and is, every day bought and sold. Every morning the advertisement columns of The Times contain the particulars of two or three livings which are in the market. The advowson, or perpetual right to present, is regarded as a kind of real estate. Originally, it is said, conceded to the Lord of the Manor by the Bishop in return for an endowment, it was attached to the manor, and was bought and sold with it. Then the practice grew up of selling the manor without the advowson, or the advowson without the manor, but even when severed from the land it still continued to be regarded as land. It may not only be sold outright, but for a life or lives, or for a term of years, or put into settlement. Practically nowadays either the advowson is sold outright, or else the right to present to the next vacancy only ; and either " advowson " or "next presentation" is regarded as mere property, liable even to satisfy the owner's debts. But though it is property, there was in the days of the Reformers a notion, which is probably by no means extinct even now, that the patron ought not to take money for presenting a clerk. If any one of our readers wishes to present a son, or a nephew, or a friend to a living, he may buy the next presentation and present his nominee, but he may not pay the patron to present him. Who profits by this except the lawyers it is difficult to say, but by the 31 Elizabeth, cap. 6, if a patron presents to a living for money or a promise of money, not only is the presentation void and the right to fill up the vacancy forfeit to the Crown, but the patron forfeits two years' income of the living, half to the Crown and half to any public-spirited person who may be dis- posed to sue in the capacity of a common informer. It has been decided that the sale of the next presentation is perfectly legal if the incumbent is lying on his deathbed, but-the form - of a conveyance must be gone through while the living is full. If the incumbent dies five minutes before the conveyance is signed the bargain falls through, and the next pre- sentation cannot be sold until the patron has presented a clerk to the living gratis. That A should take 1,000/. from B for conveying to him the right to present to a living five minutes before the rector dies is a legitimate dealing with property. That A should take 1,000/. from B to present to the living B's nominee five minutes after the rector's death is a shocking outrage on decency, is called Simony, after Simon Magus, and is punished by severe penalties. The case of a clergyman who wishes to purchase a living is even more absurd. Under the statute of Elizabeth, if he is privy to the simoniacal bargain, be too forfeits two years' income of the living, half to the Crown and half to the informer, and is more- over, for ever incapable of holding that living ; while he loses his preferment, even if he was entirely ignorant of the simony. But he might buy either an advowson or a next presentation in exactly the same way as a layman. That a clergyman should, however, buy eo nornine the next presenta- tion to a "cure of souls" was a thorn in the sides of the severe moralists of the time of Queen Anne, and accordingly they passed an Act declaring that to be simony. But they by no means pro- hibited him from buying an advowson. That might have seriously diminished the value of a species of property mainly in the hands of the landowners, and though the squirearchy have always been devoted to the Church, a Parliament of land- owners was not prepared to go that length. The result is, that in the present day if a clergyman buys a next presenta- tion for 1,000/., he commits the deadly sin of simony, but if he buys the advowson for 3,0001., holds it till the living is vacant, presents himself, and then resells the advowson for 2,0001., he has simply engaged in an ordinary business transac- tion to which no one can attach blame. If he has a difficulty in providing the difference of value between the advowson and next
presentation, he may facilitate matters by mortgaging the advo w- son. To make the matter worse, the artificial distinctions made
by the statutes of Elizabeth and Anne are rendered still more artificial by a series of subtle decisions. The case of "Fox v. Bishop of Chester," decides that a man may buy a next pre- sentation in immediate expectation of a death vacancy uithout the privity and without any view to the nomination of the clerk after- wards presented. But suppose a father to buy it for his son, and the son, as would probably be the case, to be privy to the pur- chase, there would be, we believe, considerable doubt about the matter. And yet the purchase of a living for a son appears to be thought laudable by the Legislature, for it passed an Act expressly to legalize resignation bonds by which a patron may appoint an incumbent to a living which falls vacant incon- veniently soon, on condition that he shall surrender it when the patron's son comes of age. What such a state of the law as this must lead to it is not difficult to imagine. There is absolutely no connection between what is legal or illegal, and moral or immoral, and when that is the case people will never think it wrong to evade the law, if it is found inconvenient. Even a scrupulous man may very often be in doubt whether a proposed transaction is legal or not, and if the arrangement is really in substance incorrupt, and lawyers and agents assure him that in practice it is always regarded as permissible, he easily gives way. The bargain is carried out. I vacancy occurs. The clergyman is presented. And then a new actor comes on the stage. The patron or the clergyman, or both, receive a lawyer's letter informing them that an action is about to be commenced under the statute of Elizabeth for two years' income of the living, and sooner or later it is hinted to them that the plaintiff will be satisfied by the payment of his moiety of the penalty. We have reason to know that at the present moment this is a regular practice. The plaintiff, or extortioner, is so well informed as to the facts of each par- ticular transaction that he must in some way have access to the books of the principal clerical agents, and he probably drives a thriving trade. He seldom or never actually brings a suit to trial, but relies rather on the fears of his clerical victim. But when one considers how serious would be the consequences of an adverse verdict; that the preferment would be lost to the clergyman, and what is worse, to his family, even if the patron alone had transgressed the law ; that if he were held to have himself violated the law he would incur a fine of twice the amount asked by the informer ; and that he would probably be completely ruined by being convicted of anything with so vaguely terrible a name as simony ;—if one considers, further, - the utter want of courage or even common sense with which most men, and above all others clergymen, meet even an utterly false charge of a disgraceful character, one has no difficulty in realizing how large may be the amount of black- mail which an unscrupulous man may succeed in extorting from his victims, and with what perfect impunity he may pursue his infamous trade.
That any Government should go out of its way to bring any branch of the law into harmony with some kind of principle or even common sense is not, of course, to be expected. The numerous and important measures which are at present before the House of Commons are known to all of us, and the Attorney-General's hands are so full, that though his Patent Law Amendment Bill was mentioned in the speech from the Throne, he has not been able to introduce it before the arrival of a very late Easter. But a private member might earn some reputation by taking up the subject. Whether the sale of advowsons ought ever to have been permitted may be very doubtful, but it is too late in the day to raise that question, or at all events it goes beyond our present purpose. The rationale of the practice seems to be this—that it is the Bishop's business to see that the patron's presentee is a fit person to hold the living—that it is the Bishop who gives him his spiri- tual authority, and that the patron presents only to the emolu- ments of the benefice. If this latter right may be sold at all, it is hard to see why it may not be sold at all times, as well when the living is vacant as when it is full, provided that notice of the sale is at all times given to the Bishop when the presentee applies to him for induction. If, how- ever, the purchaser is himself a clergyman, and desires to present himself, the case is one of more difficulty. Clearly the distinction between buying a next presen- tation and an advowson is altogether futile. If he ought not to buy the former, neither ought he to be allowed to present himself on the first vacancy of the latter. Still it certainly seems desirable to prevent the income of the living, which is given to enable the incumbent to maintain his posi- tion and do his duty by his parishioners, from being diverted to any other purpose. It is not easy, however, to see how this can be effected, for a man may borrow money on a policy of insurance and purchase an advowson even now with the borrowed money, and then of coarme the premiums and interest are practically a charge on the income of the living. And the existing law does not persistently early out even the principle of keeping the income for the inbumbent. The pension of an officer in the army can- not be taken from him by his creditors, but the income of a living after payment of a curate's stipend may be sequestered. Neither is it simony for a priest to buy a living by engaging to pay a portion of the income to charitable uses, provided that the patron and his relatives in no way benefit by it. On the whole, it seems difficult to draw any longer any distinction between the purchase of a next presentation by a clerk or a layman. Simony by a lay patron should be defined as "the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for money, gift, or reward to be paid out of the profits of the benefice," and any bargain by which some third person pays the patron a sum down and takes the charge on the benefice to himself should of course be regarded in the same light. To go further than this, in the state in which things are, seems scarcely possible, and we are con- vinced that the best policy would be to make all purchases of livings legal, and therefore open and aboveboard. While the present irrational and capricious restrictions are maintained there will always be bargains which sail very close to the law, and are therefore kept more or less secret, and at least in cases in which a clergyman is the purchaser, or privy to the purchase, there is something objectionable about secrecy of any kind. If the purchase were clearly legal there would be no longer any object in concealment, and the bishop would, where a clergyman is the purchaser, doubtless inquire into his fitness for his office with more than ordinary care. After all, it is to him that parishioners must look for protection. But clearly the law should either permit or forbid a thing in every form. To forbid it in one form and permit it in another is to effect a mischievous divorce between law and morality ; and to give a share of the penalty to any one who will take ad- vantage of any breach of the law is simply to foster a tribe of scoundrels who make an infamous profit by practising on the apprehensions of a class whose reputations are as assail- able as those of women.
We need scarcely add that our reasoning in no way advo- cates the making the sale of a bishop's patronage legal. He is clearly discharging a trust, and gives the cure of souls as well as the income.
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