[116] In the vestry of the church of East Moulsey is suspended a map of considerable size, showing the land that has been left to the parish for the sustentation of the church. The land ought to produce 120l. but some years since the parishioners engaged in a law-suit respecting a pew in the church, and lost the suit, and the income from the charity land was year by year absorbed in the payment of the debt then incurred. One evidence brought forward to prove the faculty was the following inscription, which is still (or was till lately) over the altar, painted at the foot of a daub, having the Ten Commandments surrounded by drapery, &c.:—
"In lieu of the Commandments formerly written on the wall (when by
consent of the parish he made his pew) these tables were placed
here by—Mr. Benson, MDCCXII."
[117] Gentleman's Magazine, A.D. 1780, p. 364.
[118] We are so used to speak of the seats in church, that we commonly forget the more proper appellation of kneeling. This, however, was not always so. An old metal plate formerly on a pew in a church in the diocese of Oxford, has this inscription:—
"No 83. Vicar and Churchwardens, two kneelings. Trustees of Poor House three kneelings."
[119] See History of Pues, p. 37.
| "Item. Paid to good wyfe Wells for salt to destroy the fleas in the Churchwardens' Pew | d. vi. |
St. Margaret's Accounts. Dublin Review, xiii.
[121] So called, as some suppose, because it could be folded and removed when necessary.