Guernsey.
RIGHT OF REFUGE IN THE CHURCH PORCH.
(Vol. ix., p. 325.)
The following entry appears in a Corporation Book of this city, under the year 1662:
"Thomas Corbold, who hath a loathesome disease, have, with his wife and two children, layne in the Porch of St. Peters per Mountegate above one year; it is now ordered by the Court that he be put into some place in the Pest-houses during the pleasure of the Court, untill the Lazar-houses be repaired."
How they were supported during the year does not appear, or if he belonged to the parish; nor is it said that it was considered he gained settlement on the parish by continuing in the porch one year.
I have heard of similar instances under an idea that any person may lodge in a church porch, and are not removable; but I believe it is an erroneous idea.
Goddard Johnson.
In proof of the idea being current among the lower orders, that the church porch is a place of refuge for any houseless parishioners, I beg to state that a poor woman of the adjoining parish of Langford, came the other day to ask whether I, as a magistrate, could render her any assistance, as, in consequence of her husband's father and mother having gone to America, she and her family had become houseless, and were obliged to take up their abode in the church porch.