The disposition to force on alterations of the law by
obstruct- ing its execution appears to spread even in England. A knot of curates have recently impaired the value of advowsons by violently interrupting their sale by auction, and this week the same plan has been adopted to resist the collection of the Vicar's Rate iu Coventry. In two of the parishes of that town. the Vicar is paid by a rate on houses, which was established by statute in 1778, and in the parish of Holy Trinity amounts to a shilling in the pound. The Nonconformists object to the rate, though it is old and in principle indistinguishable from tithe,. and have assisted in efforts to commute it by a voluntary sub- scription. The efforts have, however, failed, the Church party seeing nc objection to the rate ; and some Nonconformists declining to pay, the money has, in a few instances, been levied by distress. Upon the auctioneer, however, pro- ceeding to offer the goods seized, he was met by such an uproar that the sale could not proceed. A second effort was made on Wednesday, but though the room was strictly guarded by the police, the audience by their tumult again rendered any sale impossible. The goods can, we pre- sume, be sold in London, and that course ought to bo adopted. If it is possible to raise the Vicar's income in any other way, it may be expedient to do so, for the sake of peace ; and the refusal of the Churchmen to pay their share is not neighbourly ; but as the rate is a hundred years old, it is clearly a mere rent-charge upon house property, and its abolition would be a present, by the Vicar or the Legislature, to the house-owners, at the expense of the parish. Nonconformists deny this, urging that rents in Holy Trinity are no lower than in non-rated districts ; but they have to prove that they would not be higher, if the rate were abolished. Any way, their duty is to apply to Parliament, not to conspire to obstruct the law.
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