afforded by our advice, is disposed of by correspondence or in personal conference.

The table shows that we have made 500 Orders during the past year in exercise of the authority first conferred upon our Board by the Charitable Trusts Act, 1860, for the appointment or removal of trustees, for the establishment of Schemes for the regulation of Charities, or for vesting their real estate, through an easy and simple course of procedure, free from technicalities and almost wholly free of cost. The numbers of such Orders

made by us in the years 1925 and 1924 were 627 and 632 respectively.

Schemes

Description of Orders.

Number during year.

Orders for appointment or removal of Trustees,
or vesting real estate, or for one or more of
these purposes

Authority to compromise claims
Authority for improvements or for expenditure
on improvements, buildings, or otherwise, and
for raising, adjusting, or discharging loans
Authority to grant pensions or special remunera-
tion to officers of Charities

Opinion and advice for the indemnity of Trustees
making special payment or otherwise ..
Certificates authorising applications to the High
Court of Justice and other Courts

Certificates to the Attorney-General with a view
to the institution by him of ex-officio proceed-
ings

Applications to the Attorney-General for sanction to proceedings under the Charitable Trusts (Recovery) Act, 1891 ..

Requisition to produce Accounts and Documents, and to answer enquiries

Orders under Various Special Enactments
Orders under the Local Government Act, 1894,
other than Orders under Section 14 (1) or (3)
of that Act

Orders under the Local Government Act, 1894,

Section 14 (1) or (3)

* The powers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to make exchanges of Charity Lands being more summary and beneficial than the powers vested in our Board for the same purposes, such transactions are generally referred to their cognizance.

(34-3940)Q

A 4

Orders authorising the transfer of Stock or the
payment of money to the Official Trustees of
Charitable Funds, or the investment of money
by the Official Trustees of Charitable Funds .. 1,965 1,898
Authority to the Official Trustees of Charitable
Funds to sell Stock and to pay the proceeds of
such sales of Stock and other moneys..
Various Orders relating to matters in the Depart-
ment of the Official Trustees of Charitable
Funds

1,913

345

364

362

208

194

206

Total ..

4,954

5,047 4,772

* Separate orders authorising the enrolment of Deeds are no longer made.

(6) Accounts of Charities.

The number of separate Charities of which Accounts have been rendered to us during the past year is 45,349. The like number for the year 1925 was 46,071.

The total number of Accounts received during the year is This number includes:

68,045.

The total number of Accounts received in 1925 was 66,771.

(7) Schemes under Charitable Trusts Act, 1853,
Sections 54 60.

Acts confirming the four Schemes approved and certified by us in the year 1923 were passed on the 30th June, 1926.

During the past year we have approved and certified two new Schemes, each requiring an Act of Parliament to give effect to it. In each case the proposals upon which the Scheme is based seemed to us reasonable and desirable. As required by the Charitable Trusts Act, 1853, Section 60, they are set out in full in Appendix D.

(1) A Scheme for the Charity known as the Fuel Allotment in the Ancient Parishes of Feltwell St. Mary and Feltwell St. Nicholas, in the County of Norfolk.

(2) A Scheme for the Charity consisting of the Calvinistic Chapel at Thornton Rust, in the Parish of Aysgarth, in the North Riding of the County of York.

THE FELTWELL FUEL ALLOTMENT.

The object of this Scheme is to relieve a large tract of land from the restriction against sale of a Fuel Allotment imposed by Section 19 of the Commons Act, 1876 (39 and 40 Vict. c. 56), so as to render it productive of profit to the poor inhabitants of the parishes.

By an Act of 1813 for the Inclosure of the township of Feltwell the Commissioners for the Inclosure were directed to set out to certain persons as Trustees for the poor inhabitants of the township legally settled therein such parts of the West Common as they should think reasonable in trust to suffer such of the inhabitants as should not occupy lands or tenements of more than the yearly value of £10 to cut for use in their dwellings and not for sale, reed, sedge, turf, flags, peat and fuel and also whins and furze on such parts and under such regulations as the Trustees should direct, and the Trustees were authorised to lease or demise the whole or any part of the allotment which should not produce reed, sedge, turf, flags, peat or fuel, or which should not be appropriated by the Trustees for that purpose, or the grass feed or herbage therefrom, for terms not exceeding fourteen years, and it was directed that the rents and profits should be laid out in the purchase of fuel which should be distributed among the poor inhabitants of the township, and that the remainder of the allotment not appropriated for taking reed, etc., nor let or demised as aforesaid, should be used and enjoyed solely and exclusively by such poor inhabitants as aforesaid as a common of pasture for all geese, stock and cattle, bona fide their property, under such regulations as the Trustees should appoint, provided that if the rents and profits should be more than sufficient for the purposes aforesaid the Trustees should apply them for the relief of the poor in such manner as they should think proper.

And it was further provided that when the Commissioners had made such allotment they should allot the residue of the (34-3940)Q

A 5

West Common to the same Trustees upon trust to permit the occupier of each commonable or common right messuage or cottage within the township to dig and take every year at the proper seasons of the year, any quantity of turves or flags of the usual dimensions not exceeding 12,000 for each messuage or cottage and also such quantity of sedge or reed as the Trustees should direct, such turves or flags and sedge and reed to be consumed in the township, and upon further trust to permit each such occupier of a commonable or common right messuage or cottage and of the lands thereto belonging, appendant or appurtenant, to use so much of the West Common as should not be otherwise expressly appropriated as before mentioned as a common pasture for their stock cattle and geese of every kind in such manner as the Trustees should direct.

By their Award dated 8th September, 1815, the Commissioners allotted to the said Trustees 360 acres part of the West Common by metes and bounds upon the trusts and for the several intents and purposes which in the Act were expressed, and they allotted to the same Trustees the residue of the West Common upon the trusts which in the Act were expressed concerning the residuary allotment.

The area of the West Common is not stated either in the Act or in the Award, nor does the Plan annexed to the Award extend as far as the Common. No part of the land has so far as is known been alienated, but the total area now held by the Trustees is only 341 813 acres and appears to be only that which is included in the metes and bounds above mentioned.

It is not known where or what the "residue " was. The land, which is liable to floods, is about three miles distant from the village, and little use has ever been made of it either for turf-digging or for grazing. With the exception of 52-521 acres which the Trustees have left open for turf-digging, the whole has been let and the net proceeds have been applied in the purchase of fuel for the poor. It is not proposed that the 52.521 acres should be alienated, and the Scheme deals only with the remaining 289-292 acres which are now let on a tenancy expiring in October 1927 at the rent of £85.

The land is subject to two drainage rates payable by the landlords. One of these, levied by the Ouse Drainage Board, has been paid in the three years 1923 to 1925 to the amount of £234 14s. 7d. by the tenant, who has deducted it from his rent, so that for the three years the Trustees received a net rent of £7 5s. 5d. The other rate, levied by the Feltwell Second District Commissioners, and amounting in each of the last three years. to £144, has not been paid for a number of years for lack of means to pay it. The Trustees owed on this account at the close of 1926 £983, and the land is liable to seizure by the Commissioners to satisfy the debt.

It is represented that the land is thus of no use to the parish and can never be let on such terms as to offer a reasonable prospect of the debt being discharged and a profit realised for the benefit of the poor. On the other hand it is represented that the land is well suited for the growing of sugar-beet, and that the near proximity of a sugar-factory and the recent construction of a light railway and a loading-station within a few yards of the land render it probable that a sale would realise enough to discharge the debt and secure a balance available for the needs of the poor of the township.

No part of the land is suitable for a recreation ground or for field gardens because of its distance from inhabited houses. But if a sufficient balance is realised it is proposed to apply part as soon as possible in or towards the acquisition of a playing field or recreation ground in or close to the village.

No objections to the Scheme have been received.

THE CALVINISTIC CHAPEL AT THORNTON RUST.

The object of this Scheme is to free the Charity from certain provisions which it is alleged render the trusts incapable of execution.

By Deed dated 2nd January 1827 John Tomlinson conveyed to Trustees 1 acre 2 roods 13 poles of land at Thornton Rust upon trust to erect thereon a schoolroom and chapel and other buildings and to permit them to be used by a schoolmaster for teaching a limited number of the children of the Township of Thornton Rust and the villages of Aysgarth and Worton free of charge, and performing divine service in the chapel, the schoolmaster to be a Calvinistic Minister professing the extreme Calvinist Creed, the particular doctrine of which is set out in the deed. By Deed dated 1st February 1827 the same donor vested in the same Trustees £2,105 7s. 8d. New 4 per cent. Navy Annuities (now £2,153 4s. 7d. Consols), the interest to be applied to the necessary repairs of the buildings and in payment of an usher or, when no usher was employed, the schoolmaster. By Deed dated 12th September 1831 he also conveyed to the Trustees of the chapel and school a dwelling-house at Thornton Rust for the use of the Minister during tenure of his office free of rent.

Since the resignation of the last Minister-Schoolmaster in August 1925, the Trustees have been unable to find anyone willing to act as Schoolmaster and also to qualify for appointment by subscribing the required doctrine and undertaking the service of the chapel. It is alleged that in fact no Minister has in recent years been required to subscribe the doctrine, that there are no Calvinists within 50 miles, and that the chapel has been used for services for Nonconformists every other Sunday alternately with those held by the Church of England in a Missionroom in the Village. It is desired to continue this arrangement