CRITICISM OF CHURCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22022, 3 August 1933, Page 11

CRITICISM OF CHURCH

VICAR’S “POOR WAGES.” Criticism of the Church of England for its treatment of the clergy appears in the will of the Rev. R. E. Healey, of Odiham, Hampshire, who, regretting that he could not make bequests to certain individuals and organisations, wrote: —“My average stipend during 38 years was £3OO. . . . My so-called livings cost me £IOO a year out of my small patrimony. . . . “ Church people, as a rule, allow the parochial clergy not only to serve them on very poor wages, but expect them to support financially the parish church and every parish institution. It is also required that the parsonage itself—to he maintained at the parson’s expense — should be the home of hospitality. “ Church folk generally prefer a married person and expect him both to support his family and provide for his widow.”

Mr Healey, who had been rector of Lower Crumpsall, Manchester; vicar of St. Thomas’s, Coventry; and rector of Tibbertou, Gloucestershire, left £0026.

The gold supply of the Bank of International Settlements, at Basle, Switzerland, amounts (o one 25-cent pool picee, minted in San Francisco in 1852. In's coin was given to the bank by a friend when he learned that the banka vaults contained no precious metal. The banks gold holdings are stored in other banks. King Alexander, of Jugoslavia, was godfather at the christening of the fifteenth child of Peter Kubek, a peasant fanner, of Rum a. The child, a boy, is Peter’s ninth son, and Peter was the ninth son in his family.