Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII RECORDS UP TO THE DISSENTERS' CHAPELS ACT The contents of this chapter are taken from— 1. "A Register of the Briefs published in the Congregation of protestant Dissenters in the City of Chester, and the Sev'ral Sums collected upon them since Michaelmas, 1713." 2. " Disbursed on Account of the Congregation since the Beginning of April, 1715." 3. " The Cash Book, Being an Account of Monies received by Mr. John Gardner and paid for the support of the Ministry, the Repairs of the Place of Worship, and the Relief of the poor Members of the Society of Protestant Dissenters assembling in Trinity Lane in the City of Chester." In Matthew Henry's " Short Account" we find mention of " Briefs." They were voluntary collections for " Sufferers " in various ways : but, it would appear from the Chester collections, mainly for the needs of the Established Churches. If the principle were one of mutual aid or insurance, the payments provedsingularly one-sided. Either nothing ever happened to Dissenting chapels; or, if things did, such as deliberate burnings by Church-mob incendiaries, it was not considered worth while to solicit voluntary Church compensation. The briefs in themselves had been so much abused by pilferings on the part of the collectors, and "farming" on the part of the "Sufferers," that the Act was passed " for the better collecting Charity Money on Briefs by Letters Patents, and preventing abuses in Relation to such Charities." So, from March 25, 17o6, official forms were necessary, and each was to be returned, under penalty of .£5o : for forging, or counterfeiting the stamp, the punishment was " one hour publicly in the pillory " : whilst on a conviction of " farming," £5oo was to be given to the sufferers. The procedure was as follows :— (...