"
"It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred
inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish
chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of
the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box.
It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel
inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great
majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable
destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the
almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands,
not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable care
the register books for which they have always been responsible,
but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish
without a thought of their value.
"As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse,
and their contents have been used to light the church stove,
except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished
with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the
other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when
the time of the parish meeting came round."[32]
[32] _The Parish Councillor_, an article by Dr. Jessop, September
20, 1895.
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