on of the land should not be given to them. His grace accordingly
moved, in the committee, an amendment to the effect, that when waste
or common lands should be enclosed, the commissioners should assign a
certain portion of the land to the tithe-owner instead of his tithe.
This was objected to on both sides of the house, and the amendment was
negatived without a division. The bill passed, and the few alterations
which had been made in the lords were agreed to with one exception. The
peers had agreed to an amendment giving tithe on cows fed in stalls and
sheds. This was rejected; and the lords, when the bill returned to them,
did not insist upon its retention.

BILL FOR REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES, ETC.

On the 12th of February Lord John Russell brought in bills for relieving
dissenters from the necessity of celebrating their marriages according
to the forms of the church of England, and for establishing a system of
registration of marriages, births, and deaths. His lordship stated
that the two bills were not connected with each other, but that the
establishment of a proper system of registration was, in his opinion,
an indispensable pre-requisite to any measure for removing from the
dissenters their grievances relative to marriage. It was further,
he said, an important object, in a national point of view, to have a
general scheme of registration. At present there were no registry of
births, but only of baptisms; no registry of marriages, because they
were only such marriages as were performed by ministers of the church of
England; and no registry of burials, as the only burials registered
were those in which the service was performed by clergymen of the
establishment. He argued that it was necessary we should have a
registration, which should comprehend, indifferently and impartially,
all sects of the people. The late change effected in our domestic
policy, he continued, seemed to furnish the means of attaining this
end without any heavy additional expense. By the poor-law amendment act
there were two hundred and twenty-eight unions already in England and
Wales; and it might be calculated that, when the whole country was
divided into unions, there would be more than eight hundred. In every
union there was a relieving-officer, each union consisting of about
twenty parishes, and containing from sixteen to twenty thousand
inhabitants. There was likewise an auditor appointed by the board of
guardian