A STRANGE VICAR.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12398, 13 November 1908, Page 3

A STRANGE VICAR.

Alleged acts of negligence on the pr.it oi = the Xcv John Pp'nham Hayne, vicar of Stawley. near Wellington, Somerset, and also rector of Raddmgton, Somerset, were the subject oi investigation by an Ecclesiastical Commission held at Shire Hall, launton, recently. , Csv.iv:cl said that the vicar's practice xor come years had been to lock up his house on Mondays and not return until the Saturday. He was a bachelor. In the meantime, if anyone died, it was often "the case^for funerals to be hurried m order that the vicar might perform the burial service on Sunday or Monday before He was a parson fond of sport, and was well known in the hunting field in the West-' of England— not that there was anything to, complain of 'in. that, but ho seemed to treat btawley as a sort of place only to spend his. weeks-end in. The Sunday school was in ruins, and some of the children went ' to the Nonconformist Sunday school, while others went, nowhere. Several witnesses were called to speak as to the irregularity of serricesT which they said were sometimes not held on Sundays. Une said that on a Sunday, evening in June last the brother of the Key. J. P Havno assisted in the service, and turned the handle of an antiquated barrel-organ. . . The chairman said the casor would be referred to • th« bishop of the diocese for decision. •■'•■