Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

296

PARISH REGISTERS.

ed that a parliamentary inquiry should be instituted on this momentous subject, as the custodiers of the papers are perhaps not to blame in at present acting as they do. The French government furnishes an example of splendid generosity, or rather justice, in permitting the freest unpaid investigation into archives and books suited to the purposes of literature; and it is a pity that in this country the rights of the people, quoad public establishments, are still so undefined.

In concluding the subject of registration, from whence so many benefits accrue to the country, and which, but for certain ill-advised usages, might be deemed immaculate, we are led to lament that there are still several transactions affecting the comfort of the community, which have been placed under no precise system of record. The important particulars of births, marriages, and deaths, are here principally signified. At present, the session-clerk, who is generally the parochial schoolmaster and precentor, is the functionary appointed by the kirk, to take charge of the entry of births and proclamation of marriages; and as for deaths, no record at all is kept of them, any further than what may take place by the notice of burials in church-yards, made by the session-clerks, or by certain antiquated officials called Recorders, who manage the affairs of burying grounds in cities, and who seem to serve no definable purpose, but to exact enormous charges on funeral occasions.

In most parishes, (and probably in all,) there are distinct charges prescribed by the kirk sessions, which their servant the clerk shall make on entering or giving an extract of births or proclamations of marriage. But whatever may be the precise nominal fee, that is generally of little real consequence. In reading over the proceedings of kirk sessions a hundred years back, or earlier, we perceive that these fees were very light. The sum of 4d. sterling for a birth, and perhaps ls. for a marriage, were the utmost charged, and we believe,

PARISH REGISTERS.

297

that in some primitive-minded parishes, the fees are still nearly as moderate. In practice, the whole machinery of registration has gone wrong, In very many instances the entries are not only made defectively, but the fees are preposterously high. As formerly noticed, it is only the entry of the proclamation of marriage which is made, not the attestation of the marriage itself. A few clerks take an interest in procuring the names of the officiating clergymen, with the time and place of the ceremony, which they also enter; but the law dictates no such procedure. The worst peculiarities, however, in the present usages, are the want of any regular mode of registration, and the very great carelessness displayed in keeping the records. The kirk, which has hitherto been the only supervening autho rity in parish registers, can, on this matter, be warrantably accused of carelessness. We have seen parish registers kicked about a country school-room among the rubbish of out-written copy books, hanging in tatters, and wanting leaves, and have sometimes observed them in private houses more than thirty miles from their parish; lent probably to give amusement to a circle of idle village gossips, with no security for their safe return, and in some cases we know that they were never returned. In consideration of the frequent appeals made to such documents, and the amount of property occasionally staked on the discovery of a single line, it is melancholy to observe such a palpable laxity in the government of parish registers.

Next, as regards the enormity of the fees. The public suffer by the extortions of a variety of authoritative functionaries, but hardly in any case are they so severely mulcted as in procuring certificates of proclamation of marriage. The nominal amount of the prescribed fees is generally of no moment; the price to be paid depending in a great measure on the greed of the clerks. In most towns a certificate or copy of the lines, as it is technically phrased, costs half-a-guinea, but if the best man," or the person who negociates

298

PARISH REGISTERS.

the transaction be simple, he may perhaps pay double, triple, quadruple, sextuple, or even octuple that sum.*

We have already commented on the absurd practices pursued in relation to the latter topic, and it would be tiresome to go into more extended illustrations. The whole process of parochial registrations is bad, and must be amended. A bill is now in active preparation, by which we are given to understand, that a very great reformation is to be effected; and whatever may be its provisions, they can scarcely be more injurious, and certainly not so flagitious as the present practices. It is to be trusted, that among other regulations, the charges of entries will be defined and enforced, and that especially the fees of registering births may be abrogated, for we have it as the opinion of the best statistical writers, that the sums, however small, taken on these occasions, altogether debar thousands of poor families from entering the births of their children. We need scarcely add, that in every case a double set of books, for the distinct registration of births, marriages, and deaths, should be used, one of which to remain always in the parish, and the other to be transmitted at regular intervals to the General Register House at Edinburgh. Without some such improvement, there can be no proper bills of mortality in Scotland exhibited; and the community must continue to submit to much distress and inconvenience.

* We here refer chiefly to the system pursued in Edinburgh, where the business of all the city parishes is managed at an office under the authority of the magistrates, who seem to allow greater abuses than the kirk in this matter.

+Among other amendments in the new bill, it is proposed to constitute a sort of lay court as guardians of the registers in every parish in conjunction with the church. This, as well as some other provision, has been warmly objected to by the established clergy, but their arguments have had no weight in altering our opinion, as above expressed. They have decidedly laid themselves open to censure, for at the best they should have been the first to see, and to cure, the pernicious abuses which are acknowledged to exist.

PROMINENT AND PECULIAR LAWS AND USAGES
CONCLUDED.

CRIMINAL LAW-MODE OF PROSECUTION AND TRIAL-
EXECUTIONS.

He pleaded still not guilty.

The king's attorney, on the contrary,
Urged on examinations, proofs, confessions,
Of diverse witnesses.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE application of Scottish law to the inquisition and punishment of crime, is almost as opposite to that of England, as light is to darkness. On this point, there is a distinct and palpable dissimilarity. The reason of such a peculiarity may be comprehended from the previous short observations on the nature of the entire law of Scotland. Statutes particularly applicable to this country, as well as general, in regard to the three kingdoms, have been instituted since the Union, to cause the suppression of certain crimes; but these form only a small share of criminal jurisprudence; and the old Scotch laws and usages are here brought more prominently into view than in civil actions. The English is known by the name of the statute-the Scotch, by that of the common, law; and both are the boast of their respective nations. The difference between these two codes may be reduced in general terms to the circumstance, that by the former, every possible crime hitherto known, has been met by a statute for

300

PECULIARITIES IN

its future prevention and punishment; while, by the latter, crimes are more commonly dealt with on general principles, and the perpetration is judged of and punished from a knowledge of concurrent circumstances. The first renders every man aware of his danger, when under temptation, to commit a misdemeanour, and may induce him to go to the very verge of crime with impunity. The second produces caution for the opposite reason, and makes him wary of entering an enclosure in which he may be suddenly snapt. The elements of both are characteristic of the people among whom they operate; and we have no doubt the attempt to institute an amalgamation would be met with great dissatisfaction.

To judge of a subject so intricate and comprehensive, it would be necessary to bring both codes into view collaterally with the other institutions of the country; for by doing so, it would be found that the mischiefs of a too scrupulous regard to statutes on the one side, and an apparent danger in the dispensation of general law on the other, were in a great measure neutralized by minute provisions, not seen until the forms are nearly examined. This is more observable in the Scotch than the English law, and a comparison of their merits would incline us to prefer the former, on the score of not only vigour but humanity. The criminal statute law of England is allowed to be sanguinary, and, we are afraid, it is very elusory. Besides, even granting that its alleged minuteness might be beneficial, its unintelligibility, from a concourse of enactments, many hundreds of which have been rescinded, extended in their meaning, or obscured by others more recent, render the whole one of the most contradictory and useless codes of jurisprudence in the world.

The most obvious mischief in the statute law, is the permission it gives to commit new offences, as well as an allowance to go within a hair-breadth of an actual infraction of old ones; thereby confusing ideas of right and wrong. Hume, a popular Scotch writer on crimi nal law, points out the superiority of the common, over

« ZurückWeiter »