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Sheriffs, coroners, high and petty constables, church-wardens, even justices of the peace, had come down from a period when government was of quite another and more primitive character, in which the central power counted for far less, local powers for far more. Most of the local officials were unpaid, and the others were dependent on insignificant fees for such money reward as they obtained.

That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story, said the young fellow whom they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to Horatio, and continued. Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other things thought the doors should be attended to.

That all such persons as are within the several parishes, when notice is given of the taking of it, and do absent themselves from the church at the time of taking it, and come not in afterwards, to the minister and church-wardens or other officers, to take it in their presence before the return be made, be returned as refusers.

For, in the next paragraph, the ministers and curates are only required, where they conveniently can, to accompany the church-wardens, or procure some other of the chief inhabitants, to do the same.

If we can persuade ourselves to perform the other half, by removing the remainder of the buildings, and continuing the line to the steps, at the bottom of Spiceal-street, the work will stand in the front of modern improvement. In the south-east part of the wall, covered by the engine-house, upon another stone, nearly obliterated, is, John Enser, Richard Higginson, Church-wardens, 1709.

We must cry out with all our might upon its centralizing tendency, and of course make the most we can out of the pretense that it violates the sanctity of the house of mourning, and outrages the most fondly cherished feelings of Englishmen. Urge these objections upon church-wardens, overseers, and vestrymen; and especially din the objection to a burial rate into their ears.

This old church-tower was formerly lighted by three large windows, one of them of very great size; but the thrifty church-wardens of a generation or two ago had built them up with brick, to the great disfigurement of the church. The sexton called my attention to the organ-pipe, which is of sufficient size, I believe, to admit three men.

A Mr James Wood, amongst other curious provisions, devised to the church-wardens of the parish of St Nicholas Cole Abbey, the sum of 15s. annually, to be given away in twopences to such poor people as they should meet in the streets when going and returning from church on a specified day.

On the other hand, everything was managed with so much care, and such excellent order was observed in the whole city and suburbs by the care of the Lord Mayor and aldermen and by the justices of the peace, church-wardens, &c., in the outparts, that London may be a pattern to all the cities in the world for the good government and the excellent order that was everywhere kept, even in the time of the most violent infection, and when the people were in the utmost consternation and distress.

They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or more when they dug it, and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such a frightful thing, telling them they were making preparations to bury the whole parish, and the like; but time made it appear the church-wardens knew the condition of the parish better than they did; for the pit being finished September 4th, I think they began to bury in it on the 6th, and by the 20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it one thousand one hundred fourteen bodies, when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies being within six feet of the surface.