But the
parish clerks sinned grievously. One Phillips, clerk of Lambeth parish,
ran away with the register book, so Francis Sadler tells us in his
curious book, _The Exaction and Imposition of Parish Fees Discovered_,
published in 1738, "whereby the parish became great sufferers; and in
such a case no person that is fifty years old, and born in the parish,
can have a transcript of the Register to prove themselves heir to an
estate." Moreover, Master Sadler, who was very severe on parish clerks,
tells of the iniquities of the Battersea clerk who used to register boys
for girls and girls for boys, and not one-half of the register book, in
his time, was correct and authentic, as it ought to be.
What shall be said of the carelessness of an incumbent who allowed the
register to be kept by the clerk in his poor cottage? When a gentleman
called to obtain an extract from the book, the clerk produced the
valuable tome from a drawer in an old table, where it was reposing with
a mass of rubbish. Another old parchment register was discovered in a
cottage in a Northamptonshire parish, some of the pages of which were
tacked together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead. The clerk in
another parish followed the calling of a tailor, and found the old
register book useful for the purpose of providing himself with measures.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189