officers to report on the condition and efficiency of steam-vessels and their machinery. It exercises a supervision also over railways and railway companies, not only with respect to their original formation, but also as to their subsequent working; inquires into the circumstances of accidents, and provides, if need be, for the greater safety of the public. This board also registers all joint-stock companies. A similar duty with respect to copyright in designs is imposed on it; and under its immediate control are placed the schools of design. One of its departments is charged with the publication of information with respect to the revenue, trade, commerce, wealth, population, and statistics of the realm; another department collects and prepares the tables of the prices of corn which regulate the rent-charges now paid in lieu of tithes, and another superintends the administration of the laws relating to bankruptcy.

Under this branch of the prerogative fell formerly the establishment of public marts, or places of buying and selling; such as markets and fairs, with the tolls thereunto belonging;-and the regulation of weights and measures; but neither can now with propriety be referred simply to the prerogative, any more than the ancient prerogative to give money authority, or make it current. The regulation of the coinage is now within the domain of Parliament only.

6. The sovereign is the general conservator of his people, and as such is guardian of all infants and lunatics, an authority exercised by his judges. In this capacity, also, he is guardian of the Public Health, and appoints the Local Government Board,-to which is committed its protection, by means of the powers conferred on them to regulate the proceedings of the local authorities, whose duty it is to carry out the provisions of the various sanitary statutes relating to the public health. On the crown in council also is devolved the duty of protecting the public safety, by laying down rules for the storage, carriage, and sale of gunpowder and other explosive and dangerous substances.

7. The sovereign is, lastly, the head and supreme governor of the national church; and, in virtue of this authority convenes prorogues, restrains, regulates, and dissolves all ecclesiastical synods or convocations;-nominates to vacant bishoprics, and

certain other ecclesiastical preferments; and is the dernier ressort in all ecclesiastical causes, an appeal lying ultimately to the crown in council from the sentence of every ecclesiastical judge. In the sovereign so advised is also vested the power of giving effect to any scheme or recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE ROYAL REVENUE.

THE fiscal prerogatives of the sovereign, are such as regard his

revenue.

This is either ordinary or extraordinary. The ordinary revenue is such as has either subsisted time out of mind in the crown, or else has been granted by parliament by way of exchange for such of the sovereign's inherent hereditary revenues as were found inconvenient to the subject. Not that the crown is at present in possession of the whole of this revenue; for much, nay the greatest part, of it is in the hands of subjects originally derived by them from the grants of our ancient princes.

I. The custody of the temporalities of bishops, means the lay revenues, which belong to an archbishop's or bishop's see; and which, upon a vacancy, are immediately the right of the sovereign, as a consequence of his prerogative in church matters. But this revenue, formerly considerable, is now reduced to nothing for as soon as the new bishop is consecrated and confirmed, he receives restitution of his temporalities entire and untouched.

II. The sovereign is entitled to a corody out of every bishopric; that is, to send one of his chaplains to be maintained by the bishop, till the bishop promotes him to a benefice. This is now fallen into disuse.

III. The sovereign is entitled to the tithes arising in extraparochial places. It may be doubted how far either this or the last can be considered revenue: since a corody supports a

chaplain, and these tithes ought to be distributed for the good of the clergy.

IV. The first-fruits and tenths of all spiritual preferments, that is, the first year's profits, were formerly part of the royal revenue. The decima, that is the tenth part of the annual profit of each living, was originally claimed by the pope, under the Levitical law, that the Levites "should offer the tenth part of "their tithes as a heave-offering to the Lord, and give it to "Aaron the high priest." But this claim met with a vigorous resistance from parliament; and a variety of acts were passed to restrain it, particularly 6 Hen. IV., c. 1, which calls it a horrible mischief, and damnable custom. But the clergy still kept it on foot; and, as they thus expressed their willingness to contribute so much to the head of the church, it was thought proper, when the king was declared to be so, to annex this revenue to the crown and so it remained till Queen Anne restored it; not by remitting the tenths and first-fruits entirely, but by applying these superfluities of the larger benefices to make up the deficiencies of the smaller. This is usually called Queen Anne's Bounty.

V. The next branch of the ordinary revenue is the rents and profits of the demesne lands of the crown. These lands were anciently very extensive, comprising divers manors, honours, and lordships. But at present they are contracted within a very narrow compass, having been almost entirely granted away to private subjects. The management of what remains is vested in the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues. The parks to which the public has access, are managed by the Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings.

V1. The profits of the military tenures, to which most lands in the kingdom were subject, were, till abolished by 12 Car. II. c. 24, a part of the royal revenue; and under this head might have been placed the prerogatives of purveyance and pre-emption: a right of buying up provisions for the royal household, at a valuation, in preference to all others: and also of impressing carriages and horses to do the sovereign's business, in the conveyance of baggage, and the like, however inconvenient to the proprietor, upon paying him a settled price. Having fallen into

disuse during the Commonwealth, Charles II. at his restoration consented to resign them entirely; and parliament, in recompense, settled on the crown the hereditary excise on all beer and ale sold in the kingdom, and a proportionable sum for certain other liquors.

VII. A revenue formerly arose from wine licences, first settled on Charles II to make up for the loss sustained in the abolition of the military tenures. Abolished in the reign of George II., these licences have been recently revived as a source of

revenue.

VIII. The profits arising from the royal forests was a branch of revenue consisting principally in amercements levied for offences against the forest laws. But as few, if any, forest courts have been held since 1632, this revenue is practically extinct.

IX. The profits arising from the ordinary courts of justice make a ninth branch of the royal revenue. These consist in fines imposed upon offenders, and in fees payable in a variety of legal matters. As none of these can be done without the intervention of the sovereign, or his officers, the law allows him certain profits, as a recompense for his trouble. These, in process of time, were almost all granted out to private persons; so that, though the law proceedings were long loaded with their payment, very little of them was ever returned into the Exchequer. The judges and officers of the royal courts are now paid by salary out of the consolidated fund.

X. A tenth branch of the royal revenue, the right to mines, arises from the prerogative of coinage. By the common law, if gold or silver be found in mines of base metal, the whole, according to some, belonged to the crown: though others held that it only did so if the quantity of gold or silver was of greater value than the quantity of base metal; but this is now immaterial, as the crown can only have the ore on paying for the same a price fixed by statute.

XI. A branch of the ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of the crown protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, viz., whale and sturgeon; which, when either thrown ashore, or caught near the coast, are the property of the sovereign.

XII. Another maritime revenue, founded on the same reason, is that of Wreck, which was where any ship was lost at sea, and the goods or cargo were thrown upon the land. These belonged to the crown, for by the loss of the ship all property was gone out of the original owner. But this was adding sorrow to sorrow, and was consonant neither to reason nor humanity. Wherefore by various statutes numerous exceptions were made to prevent goods being treated as wreck; and now if any live thing escape, or if proof can be made of the property, the goods are not forfeited. And the sheriff is bound to keep them a year and a day; though, if of a perishable nature, he may sell them, and the money shall be as in their stead.

XIII. To the crown belongs also treasure-trove, which is, where any money, gold, silver, plate, or bullion, is found hidden in the earth, or other private place, the owner being unknown. If it be found in the sea, or upon the earth, it does not belong to the sovereign, but to the finder, if no owner appears.

XIV. Waifs, bona waivata, goods stolen and waived or thrown away by the thief in his flight, are given to the crown as a punishment upon the owner for not pursuing the felon and taking them from him. If, therefore, any party robbed do immediately follow and apprehend the thief, which is called making fresh suit, or convict him afterwards, he shall have his goods again; for if the party robbed can seize them first, the crown shall never have them.

XV. Estrays are such valuable animals as are found wandering in any manor or lordship, and no man knows the owner, in which case the law gives them to the sovereign as the general owner, in recompense for the damage which they may have done therein. They now generally belong to the lord of the

manor.

XVI. Another branch of the ordinary revenue arises from escheats of lands, which happen upon the defect of heirs to succeed to the inheritance; whereupon they in general revert to the sovereign, who is, in law, the original proprietor of all the lands of the kingdom.

This may suffice for a short view of the sovereign's ordinary