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39
INCUMBENTS' BURIAL FEES.
The attention of the Vestry was directed, by a communication
received from the Vestry of Clapham, to the payment
of a fee to Incumbents of urban parishes upon the interment
of a parishioner in an outlying cemetery, although the
Incumbent is not called upon to render any service for such
fee. These ees were authorized by the Acts relating to
the discontinuance of interments in intramural burial
grounds, by way of compensation for the loss which the
clergy would sustain by the closing of the grounds. As
upwards of thirty years have elapsed since the first of these
Acts was passed, and fees are even paid to Incumbents of
new churches to which burial grounds were never attached,
some revision of the system appears to be called for. The
Vestry, having considered the question, passed a resolution
expressing an opinion that all vested interests should be
preserved, but that the payment of fees should cease at the
death of the present Incumbent, if the interment takes place
in a cemetery or other place not under the direct control of
the Incumbent.
INHABITED HOUSE DUTY.
Following up their action of the previous year, the
Yestry, on the 14th April, agreed upon a Memorial to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, in anticipation of the introduction
of the Budget, urging upon him the desirability
of removing some of the anomalies incidental to the present
mode of levying the Inhabited House Duty. This Memorial
not eliciting any favourable reply, a deputation waited upon
Mr. Goschen on the 3rd May, in support of the same
object. Representatives of the local governing bodies of
many provincial towns joined the deputation, which was