INTELLIGENCE. NON-PAROCHIAL REGISTERS. A copy of the following letter has been received by the Dissenting Ministers who had entrusted their Chapel Registers to the Registration Commission: Sir, General Register Office, I am directed by the Registrar-General to inform you that the Commission for enquiring into the state, custody and authenticity of NonParochial Registers and Records has ceased, and that the Registers and Records examined and certified by the Commissioners have, pursuant to the Act of 3 & 4 Victoria, cap. 92, been deposited in the custody of the Registrar-General, and are at present at the Office in the Rolls Yard, Chancery Lane, London, which, for the purposes of the aforesaid Act, is deemed a branch or part of the General Register Office. Searches and extracts from these Registers and Records will be granted on every day except Sundays, Christmas-day, and GoodFriday, between the hours of 10 and 4, upon personal application only, and payment of the legal fees, and in accordance with the regulations made by the Registrar-General, with the approbation of one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State. Applications by letter for search or extract cannot be complied with. All other communications by letter on the subject of the above-mentioned Registers and Records must be addressed to "The Registrar-General, General Register Office, London ;" and it is requested that the words "Non-Parochial Registers" may be written on the outside of all such letters, the postage of which may be left unpaid.* I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, Thomas Mann, Chief Clerk. By the Act of 3 & 4 Victoria, cap. 92, sec. 5, it is enacted, "That the RegistrarGeneral shall cause Lists to be made of all the Registers and Records which may be placed in his custody by virtue of this Act; and every person shall be entitled, on payment of the Fees hereinafter mentioned, to search the said Lists, and any Register or Record therein mentioned, between the hours of Ten in the Morning, and Four in the Afternoon of every day, except Sundays and Christmas Day and Good Friday, but subject to such regulations as may be made from time to time by the RegistrarGeneral, with the approbation of one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, and to have a certified extract of any entry in the said Registers or Records, and for every search in any such Register or Record shall be paid the sum of One Shilling; and for every such certified extract the sum of Two Shillings and Sixpence, and no more." By sec. 8 of the same Act, it is enacted, "That every person who shall wilfully destroy or injure, or cause to be destroyed or injured, any Register or Record of Birth or Baptism, Naming or Dedication, Death or Burial, or Marriage, which shall In the year 1836, a parliamentary commission was appointed to enquire into the state, condition, and custody of all registers (not being parochial) of births, deaths, and marriages, with the view of ascertaining how far it might be practicable to give to such documents a legal character, and place them, in a civil point of view, on the same footing as the registers of parish churches and those of the general registry. The registration commissioners, in pursuance of the object for which they were appointed, issued a circular dated 2nd Dec. 1836, addressed to the ministers, trustees, &c., of all the Protestant non-conformist churches in England and Wales, soliciting all persons who had the custody of such registers to transmit them to the office of the commissioners for examination, with the ulterior view, in case they should be found sufficiently accurate, of their being legalized by the act contemplated by the government, and placed in safe custody in a public office. In compliance with this circular, a large number of registers from various denominations of dissenters were forwarded to the commissioners, but many congregations have stated their reluctance absolutely to surrender their registers, or indeed to forward documents of such importance for inspection, without a further guarantee as to their safe preservation, and a distinct and easy mode of obtaining access to them while in custody of the commissioners: a second circular, dated 12th April 1837, was issued by these authorities, intimating that "if the registers are withholden, the objects of the commission will be defeated, and your congregation will deprive themselves and their successors of the benefit of any provision respecting these registers, which, in pursuance of the recommendation of the commissioners, the legislature may hereafter be disposed to adopt." be deposited with the Registrar-General by virtue of this Act, or any part thereof, or shall falsely make or counterfeit, or cause to be falsely made or counterfeited, any part of such Register or Record, or shall wilfully insert or cause to be inserted in any of such Registers or Records any false entry of any Birth or Baptism, Naming or Dedication, Death or Burial, or Marriage, or who shall wilfully give any false certificate, or shall certify any writing to be an extract from any Register or Record, knowing the same Register or Record to be false in any part thereof, or shall forge or counterfeit the Seal of the said Office, shall be guilty of Felony." By sec. 9 of the same Act, it is enacted, "That the Registrar-General shall certify all extracts which may be granted by him from the Registers or Records deposited, or to be deposited, in the said Office, and made receivable in evidence by virtue of the provisions herein contained, by causing them to be sealed or stamped with the Seal of the Office; and all extracts purporting to be stamped with the Seal of the said Office shall be received in evidence in all civil cases; instead of the production of the original Registers or Records containing such entries, subject nevertheless to the provisions hereinafter contained." By sec. 10 of the same Act, it is enacted, " That every extract granted by the Registrar-General from any of the said Registers or Records shall describe the Register or Record from which it is taken, and shall express that it is one of the Registers or Records deposited in the General Register Office under this Act; and the production of any of the said Registers or Records from the General Register Office, in the custody of the proper officer thereof, or the production of any such certified extract containing such description as aforesaid, and purporting to be stamped with the Seal of the said Office, shall be sufficient to prove that such Register or Record is one of the Registers or Records deposited in the General Register Office under this Act, in all cases in which the Register or Record, or any certified extract therefrom, is herein respectively declared admissible in evidence." This circular further declared, that one "result of the commissioners' labours was to make the registers accessible," a result which could not be secured except upon the principle of their being deposited with a public officer, "from whom extracts and certificates might be easily procured." "So long," continues the circular, "as the books remain under the custody of the commissioners, applications for extracts may be sent by post, and such extracts shall be furnished, free of postage or other charge, with the signature of the secretary of the commission, vouching for their correctness." In consequence of this communication we believe nearly every nonparochial register in England and Wales was transmitted to the commissioners, to whom it is but justice to say that they faithfully performed their duties, honestly redeemed their pledges, and in every way consulted the convenience and met the wishes of ministers and congregations in the prompt transmission of extracts while the registers remained in their custody. By act 3 and 4 Vic., cap. 92, all the registers which had been approved by the commissioners, received the sanction of law, were placed under the charge of the registrar-general, and became in every important respect, of equal value and importance with parochial and general registers. By the 5th sec. of that act, the legal fees were fixed at one shilling for a search, and two shillings and sixpence for an extract, the mode of procuring or furnishing these to be determined from time to time by regulations made by the registrar-general, with the sanction of one of her Majesty's principal secretaries of state. How far these regulations, as hitherto framed, are calculated to carry out the spirit of the act, and fulfil the expectation raised by the circulars of the commissioners, may be judged of by the following extract from an order issued by the registrar-general immediately on obtaining the custody of these important records :-" Searches and extracts will be granted, upon personal application ONLY, at the office, Rolls-yard, Chancery-lane, London. Applications, by letter, for search, or extract, cannot be complied with." It is scarcely possible to conceive how the registrar- general could have frameda regulation so unjust and vexatious, unless in total ignorance of the nature of the objects contemplated by the act, and the circumstances of the persons to whom access to these documents is in the great majority of cases of importance. Such a regulation is unjust and invidious; the registers of all parochial churches being accessible to the public in every separate parish, on the payment of a small fee: and the general registers, under the new act, being also accessible in every district, copies only being deposited in the London office. The regulation is vexatious; acting indeed as an absolute prohibition to the persons to whom extracts are frequently of the greatest value; the majority of such applications being from those in the humblest ranks, requiring vouchers for the age of their children, as a necessary step to procuring them admission into the factory or charity school; soldiers and sailors soliciting pensions; or emigrants seekings a free passage to the colonies. It is earnestly to be desired, that representations embodying these facts should be made to the registrar-general, from as many quarters as possible, and with the least practicable delay. It is hardly possible that such representations will fail to procure the recal of an order so generally obnoxious, and which has all the force and odium of a penalty for religious opinion-a penalty too which may be incurred by a conscientious member of the establishment should he unhappily have had a parent who preferred the baptism of the Dissenting chapel to the same ceremony in the parish church. The following memorial, drawn up, we believe, by the Rev. William Smith, (of Stockport,) has been submitted to the members of the denomination with which he is connected. A document to the same effect should speedily be prepared by all other denominations similarly aggrieved. To the Registrar-General. The Memorial of the undersigned Dissenting Ministers, SHEWETH, That your memorialists transmitted the registers of births and deaths, belonging to their respective congregations, to the commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of registers not being parochial, with the precise understanding, as expressed in the circular of the commissioners, that the objects to be attained by the labours of the commission were, "to secure the safe preservation of these records, to make them accessible, and to impart to them the character of legal evidence." That your memorialists are grateful for the measure, which has lately passed the legislature, giving to these records the character of legal documents, and placing them for safe custody in the charge of the registrargeneral. That your memorialists conceive that the utility of this measure will be seriously lessened by the enforcement of the regulation which has lately been made by your authority, and which requires that a personal application shall in every case be made either for a search or extract. Your memorialists beg respectfully to state, that, as ministers of congregations to whom the custody of these registers was formally committed, they know it to be a fact, that the great majority of applications for searches and extracts are from persons who do not possess the means of making personal application either by themselves or deputy at a London office, and to whom this regulation will be a most serious grie vance. That your memorialists regard this regulation as not only vexatious but unjust, all other registers, whether parochial or general, being locally accessible. Your memorialists, therefore, respectfully request that you will re-consider the regulation, and permit the officer in whose custody the registers may be placed, to furnish extracts from them, by letters, to those persons who may make written application, enclosing at the same time the legal fees. Stockport, 6th September, 1841. TO CORRESPONDENTS. We must decline noticing or inserting Criticisms on Articles that have appeared in this Periodical; and, indeed, we know not on what principle any one can ask us to give circulation to views and opinions which are not our own. If we did so, we should, of course, have to review our Reviewers,—and this would lead to rejoinders, and the matter would be endless. We disown the meaning which an unknown Correspondent finds in a passage of a late Article on Miracles, and consequently with him we have no controversy. The writer of that Article entertains, and expresses in the Article itself, the highest value for the precepts of Christ, unrivalled and perfect, as they are; yet he ventures to think that they do not constitute the peculiar part of Christianity, and that they do not constitute the sources of its peculiar power, indispensable, as they undoubtedly are, to the full understanding of that which is peculiar in Christianity. I am the way, and the truth, and the life," said the Christ. There was an ethical Christianity long prevalent amongst us, which seemed to forget that Jesus alone is the full expression of his own Religion, or capable of communicating to other hearts his own spirit of Love and Power. - RICHARD KINDER, PRINTER, GREEN ARBOUR COURT, OLD BAILEY. |