i. With regard to the income of the country parson, it may be laid

down as a fact not to be disputed, that hardly one per cent. of the country clergy ever _touch_ the full amount which theoretically they are entitled to receive. In the case of parishes where the land is much subdivided, and where there are a number of small tithepayers, it would be almost impossible for the clergyman personally to collect his dues; he almost invariably employs an agent, who is not a likely man to do his work for love. Even the agent can rarely get in all the small sums that the small folk ought to pay. Even he has to submit to occasional defalcations, and to consider whether it is worth while to press the legal rights of his employer too far. Moreover, the small folk from time immemorial have expected something in the shape of a tithe dinner or a tithe tea, for which the diners or the tea-drinkers do not pay, you may be sure; this constitutes a not inconsiderable abatement on the sum-total of receipts which ought to come to hand at the tithe audit.

Taking one year with another, it may be accepted as a moderate estimate that the cost of collecting his tithe, _plus_ bad debts in some shape or other, amounts to six per cent., and he who gets within seven per cent. of his clerical income gets more than most of us do. But the law allows of no abatement in respect of this initial charge; and because the law takes up this ground, the world at large assumes that the nominal gross income of the benefice does come into the pockets of the incumbent. The world at large is quite certain that nobody in his senses makes a return of a _larger_ income than he enjoys, and if the parson pays on £500, people assume that he does not get _less_ from his living than that. The world at large does not know that the parson is not asked to make a return. The surveyor makes up his books on the tithe commutation table for the parish, and on that the parson is assessed, whatever he may say.