y after the election, the Fisheries tranquilised by victory, and
the White Boys dejected by defeat.

For the voting resulted easily in favour of Mr. Fisher, though the
validity of his return was challenged in the Court of Chancery for some
three years afterwards, during which time, however, he had no hesitation
in officiating. He was a fine reader and an able speaker, his delivery
of the Church ritual being a model of correct elocution.

Like his predecessor, he held the living a long time, the tenure of the
two covering a century. Mr. Fisher resided for a number of years at
Bentley Hall.

In 1887, soon after Mr. Fisher's "Jubilee" in Willenhall, a public
movement was instituted, in which many Dissenters took part, to
acknowledge his fifty years of devoted service among all classes of the
community. A presentation was made to him of a silver service and his
portrait in oils--the latter the work of Thomas Hill, a native of
Wednesfield, and which now hangs on the walls of the Free Public Library.

[Picture: Decorative flower]

XX.--The Election of 1894, and Since.

Although St. Giles's Church is known as the Parish Church, and a church
has probably been on the same site some six centuries, the church of
Willenhall is really a Proprietary Chapel of Ease, and its Incumbent
legally nothing more than a Perpetual Curate, or Curate in Charge, though
Incumbent of Willenhall, and receiving in respect of that office a very
substantial "living." The official return set forth in Crockford's
Clergy Directory for 1893 was: Tithe rent charge, 640 pounds, net Income,
1,300 pounds.

Strictly, there is no St. Giles's parish, nor any parish attached to St.
Giles's Church, and in law the Incumbent might, if he wished, ignore the
so-called parish so long as he performed satisfactorily certain duties in
the church. The unappropriated district, commonly known as St. Giles's
parish, includes that part of Willenhall which has not been allocated to
the properly constituted parishes (or ecclesiastical districts) of St.
Stephen's, St. Anne's, and Holy Trinity, Short Heath, plus the entire
civil parish of Bentley--the whole being really part of the
ecclesiastical parish of Wolverhampton.

The position is extraordinarily anomalous. The Incumbent is elected by
the inhabitants of the township of Willenhall being sufficient
householders and having lands of inheritance there; that is to say, the
voters must b