may
hereafter be created, under the Peel and Blandford Acts. The question at
issue was as to the right of the inhabitants of a district parish to have
their banns published and to be married in the Church of the mother
parish, and as to the right of the Incumbent of the mother parish to
publish the banns, solemnise the marriage, and receive the fees for the
same in the case of residents in the district parish. The case is fully
reported in the _Times_ of March 9th, 1883. Mr. Justice Cave, in giving
judgment for the Plaintiff, said that the Act of 1843 as well as that of
1856 (the words of the latter being clearer than those of the former)
made the district a new parish for all ecclesiastical purposes, and banns
of marriage might be published and marriages solemnized, and all the laws
and customs then relating to them would apply to the new parish, the
effect of which was that the banns must be published in the Church of the
new parish. Though recent legislation had brought into prominence the
civil character of the marriage contract, and had enabled it to be
entered into before a Registrar, still he had no doubt that the
solemnization of matrimony in a Church was within the words
"ecclesiastical purposes." The inhabitants therefore of a district
parish have no more right to have their banns asked or their marriage
solemnised in the mother Church than they have in any other Church in
England, so long as they reside in that district.

District parishes, it will be observed, are separate parishes _for
Ecclesiastical purposes_. These words affect the question as to the
right of the ratepaying parishioners of a new district voting for the
Churchwardens of the old parish. This they have a right to do on the
following ground:--The Churchwardens of an old parish have functions to
perform which are rather secular than ecclesiastical. They are in some
cases _ex-officio_ Overseers, and in many cases officially concerned in
the management of endowed charities. The creation therefore of a
district for ecclesiastical purposes does not deprive the inhabitants of
the new district of the right which they had before of voting for
Churchwardens in the old civil parish of which they continue to be
ratepayers. The ratepayers of the _whole_ of the old parish have
consequently a right to vote in vestry at the election of the
Churchwardens in the old parish. The privilege, however, is not
reciprocal, for the ratepayers in the old p