THE CHURCH AND THE BAR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sm,—You say that the prizes in the Church are as numerous and more valuable than those at the Bar. But is it so? Please to look at a few figures. The Attorney-General receives more than the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Solicitor-General much more than the Archbishop of York. These offices, it is true, are temporary, but they imply a reversion to any vacancy on the Bench. The Lord Chancellor equals the Bishop of London (with a certain pension of £5,000 if he has to give up the seals). The Lord Chief Justice has £1,000 more than the Bishop of Durham. Thirty-two Lords of Appeal and other Judges have £165,000 between them and a full pension after fifteen years of service; thirty-one Bishops have £128,000 and a possible pension of a third. This gives the lawyers an average advantage of about £1,000, fax more than makes up for the Bishop's somewhat costly privilege of keeping up a palace. Then for the lawyers there are four City Judgeships (£4,000, £3,000, £2,400, 21,700); fifty-five County Court Judgeships (B1,500); three Commissionerships in Lunacy (21,500) ; two Masterships in Lunacy (£2,000) ; two Railway Commissionerships (£3,000) ; twenty-five Police- Courts (£2,000-£1,500) ; City of London Sessions (a,cao and £1,500). There are legal adviserships in various Government offices, and probably there are other posts, as, e.g., Stipendiary Magistrates in the provinces, but I cannot find the figures. What have the clergy to set against these? One Deanery with £3,000, and six with from £2,000 to £1,500. If we add the Deanery and Canonries of Christ Church, though with one exception these are academical posts, we have seven more, and there are benefices of £1,500 and upwards. So here we have, say, one hundred legal against twenty clerical prizes, and the hundred are divided among, say, three thousand, the twenty among twenty thousand.—I am, Sir, &c.,
EX-RECTOR.
[Possibly we were wrong in saying that the legal prizes were less than the clerical ; but if our correspondent mentions the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, he ought to mention the great professional posts held by clergymen,—i.e., the head- ships of Colleges and public schools. Our point, however, remains in any case,—namely, that the Archbishopric of Canterbury (215,000 a year and a palace) and the other Bishoprics and Deaneries are splendid prizes, and that it is to the great credit of the English Church that these prizes do not excite an unworthy ambition, and that men do not take Orders to obtain them, but as a rule only because they feel a vocation.—En. Spectator.]
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