(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"]
SIR,—Mr. Carvell Williams's letter seems to me to carry its own proof of the non-necessity for any change in the law of burials, so far as obstacles to the interment of Dissenters is concerned. He says :—‘, He [Mr. MacColl] may not know of a single case in which a clergyman has illegally refused to bury a baptised person, but I can tell him of several." If this has been "illegally" done, the remedy lies with the persons aggrieved. That the refusal to bury baptised Dissenters with the full rites of the Church is illegal, there is no doubt. I extract the following from Dale's " Clergyman's Legal Hand-book" (p. 107) The minister must not refuse to bury and read the Burial Service on having con- venient warning, and if he refuse he may be suspended, although the deceased be the child of a Dissenter (' Kemp v. Wickes,' 2 Phil 209) or only baptised by a layman ('Escott v. Martin,' 6 Jur. 765), and a mandamus will also lie to enforce burial in such cases." The costs of a prosecution which would fall upon a clergyman foolish enough to defy the law in this case would be a sufficient punish- ment for the offence.
Mr. Morgan's Bill would clearly not convey any additional legal right of burial to baptised Dissenters beyond what they at present possess.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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