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EVESHAM.

VESHAM has been called the Garden of England. The soil is richer than in any other part of the country, and the fertililty of the land is shown by the immense crops of grain, fruit, and vegetables annually raised. The fruit and vegetables supply many of the largest markets. Every day trains laden with produce leave Evesham for London, Manchester, Birmingham, and other places. A considerable area is under cultivation by market-gardeners, whose grounds can be seen by the traveller on the great Western and Midland Railways as he passes Evesham Station. A quiet old town, with (at the last census) its 4680 inhabitants, Evesham has about it an air of picturesqueness that few other places in the district possess. The long wide thoroughfare shown in our illustration, the market place, with a town hall (lately renovated), the two ancient churches, dedicated respectively to S. Lawrence and All Saints; the ancient Norman bell-tower of the Abbey, and the Anon diversifying the land scenery—these constitute beauties which give the place at once a character aad an attraction.

In the summer months the whole country-side flock to Evesham Regatta. This event is a kind of carnival while it is about. Crews from London, Oxford, Cheltenham, Worcester, Tewkesbury, and other places take their boats to Evesham, and compete for the handsome prizes which are offered to all-comers. "Workman's Gardens "so called from their being formed by the indefatigable exertions of Mr. H. Workman, formerly mayor of the boroughare thronged at regatta time; a flower show is amongst the attractions; and éclat is given to the occasion by the attendance of most of the county families. This is the great local event of the year, though there are occasions when the public spirit of the townsfolk is manifested even more noticeably. A case in point was the visit of the Prince of Wales to the Duke and (the late) Duchess d'Aumale at their beautiful seat at Woodnorton, situated at a short distance from the town, in November, 1867, when the ancient borough was decorated to an extent never perhaps before dreamt of. The Prince received an address from the Town Council, there

was a grand "meet" of the Worcestershire hounds, and a ball at the Town Hall, to celebrate the Prince's visit. The members of the ex-Royal Family of France have endeared themselves to the Worcestershire people by their urbanity and unvarying kindness; and the regret shown at the death of the Duchess a few months ago was as sincere as it was general. A curious account is given by old writers of the origin of Evesham. A vision of the Virgin and two other heavenly figures was seen by one Eoves, a swineherd to Egwin, Bishop of Worcester, in a forest near what were supposed to be the ruins of a British church. The Bishop, being subsequently favoured with a glimpse of the same miraculous visitation, erected the Abbey of Eovesham-a name which has only suffered the lopping-off of a vowel through all the transmutations of time.

There are some interesting historical incidents connected with the place. The great battle was fought here between the Barons and the forces of Henry III., in which the former met with defeat; and during the Civil War, Charles I. stayed with Alderman Martin, previous to going on to Worcester. In the same year (A.D. 1644), the King took the Mayor of Evesham and some of the Aldermen prisoners to Oxford. Eveshani was made a corporate borough by James I., on the special petition of his first-born son, Prince Henry, in memory of whom the town selected its armorial bearings. from those borne by the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester. Evesham is represented in Parliament by but one member now, the last Reform Bill having deprived the borough of one of its representatives. Mr. Edward Holland, the well-known agriculturist and the famous sheep-breeder, represented the town for several years in conjunction with Colonel Bourne.

The two churches have nothing particular striking about them. In All Saints there is a richly-decorated mortuary chapel of Abbot Lichfield. A black-letter book is chained to the lectern, and the five wounds of Christ are represented on a boss in the porch.

CHURCH PROPERTY.

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BY THE REV. M. T. PEARMAN.

(Continued from page 283.)

E have yet to speak of tithes, an important item of Ecclesiastical property. Their introduction into this country is probably coæval with the introduction of Christianity itself. For some time after the conversion of our English forefathers, the alms and gifts of the people formed a common fund for church purposes divisible by the Bishop. But all traces of division disappear on the formation of parishes. "It should seem that at the commencement, people might pay their tithes to what priest they pleased, which was called the arbitrary consecration of tithes ; or they might put them into the hands of the Bishop, to be distributed among the clergy; but as this practice offered a facility for fraud and abuse, it was enacted by a law of Edgar, that the payment of tithes should be made to the parish to which they belonged. In the time of Canute a similar law was passed." But though the Norman Conquest did not take away tithes, but left all the laws which were afore made for the payment of them still in force, yet it brought in several usages which caused great alterations and abuses in the distribution of them; and such were lay collations, appropriations, infeodations, &c.† These injurious customs, introduced by the Normans, were abolished about the year A.D. 1200. In the reign of Henry II., Pope Alexander III., in a letter to the Bishops of Worcester and Winchester, stated the general institution of the Church of England to be that every parishioner should pay his tithe corn to his own parish priest. Afterwards, in the time of John (1199 -1216), Pope Innocent III. commanded, in a decretal letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that all grants of tithes made by patrons to monasteries and other corporations should be confirmed; but that, for the future, no appropriations should be made without the consent of the Bishop of the Diocese.

Tithe was the free gift of the owners of the soil. Our English ancestors charged their lands with the payment, and the law enforced the obligation, as it enforces all transactions not contrary to public welfare. But the law was not the source of tithe. The anxiety of the landowners for the spread of Christianity was the motive that actuated them in so liberally endowing the Church. This cannot be too constantly repeated and too carefully remembered, since the enemies of the Church do not hesitate to misrepresent facts. Mr. Miall's work, "The Title Deeds of the Church of England to Her Parochial Endowments," is, or was, the text book of the political dissenters on Ecclesiastical property. It has become somewhat rare, having been suppressed, as is supposed, in consequence of the exposure of Mr. Miall's ignorance by Mr. Pulman. "The Title Deeds," Mr. Miall pretends to be the result of an examination of the claim of the Church to her endowments conducted afresh by himself, though it is evident that he never consulted original documents. The source of his information is chiefly "Selden's History of Tithes" which he read without understanding it. Mr. Miall is too shrewd to enter the lists in defence of his dishonesty against a learned opponent; consequently Mr. Pulman's exposure of him in his "Anti-State Church Association, &c., Unmasked," has been silently endured.

After the year A.D. 1200 or thereabout, no change of importance took place with respect to the payment of tithes till the reign of Henry VIII. In consequence of his rupture with the Roman See, Henry determined to dissolve the monasteries. The dissolution was accomplished between the years 1535 and 1540. The King thus became possessed of a vast amount of tithes, and of lands, which, from having belonged to certain orders of monks and to others, were tithe free. These lands, on the fall of the monasteries, would have been subject by common law to pay tithe to the parson of the parish in which they were situate, had it not been for an Act of Parliament (31 Henry VIII., cap. 13). By this Act it was enacted "That the King and his patentees should hold the possessions of the dissolved monasteries, discharged and acquitted of payment of tithes, as freely and in as large and ample a manner as the houses of religion held them at the time of their dissolution." This is the origin of tithe free land. Laymen who can show that their land was formerly the property of a religious house exempted from payment of tithe, are by the above-named Act discharged of their liability. Henry bestowed the tithes he became possessed of in much the same way as he bestowed the abbey lands. Instead