Whereas under and by virtue of an Act of the forty-eighth year of King George III. c . 55, certain duties are now payable in England, Wales, and Berwick-uponTweed and in Scotland respectively upon dwelling houses, and are assessed and levied according to the number of windows or lights therein as set forth in the Schedule marked (A) to the said Act annexed; and it is expedient that in lieu thereof the duties on inhabited dwelling-houses set forth in the Schedule to this Act annexed should be assessed and levied according to the annual value of such dwelling-houses: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. From and after the fifth day of April, 1 851, in England, Wales, and the town of Berwick-uponTweed, and from and after the term of Whitsunday, 1851, in Scotland, in lieu and instead of the said duties so payable as aforesaid, and which are hereinafter repealed, there shall be assessed, raised, levied, collected and paid unto and for the use of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, upon inhabited dwelling-houses in and throughout Great Britain, the several duties set forth in the Schedule to this Act annexed, pay

able according to the annual value of such dwelling-houses, which said Schedule shall be deemed and taken to be part of this Act.

II. The said duties shall be denominated and deemed to be duties of assessed taxes, and shall be under the care and management of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for the time being; and all powers, provisions, rules, regulations, and directions, fines, forfeitures, pains and penalties, now in force contained in or enacted by any Act or Acts relating to the duties of assessed taxes, and also all powers, provisions, rules, regulations, directions and exemptions, fines, forfeitures, pains and penalties contained in or enacted by any such Act or Acts as aforesaid, with reference to the duties on inhabited dwelling-houses according to the value thereof, as set forth in the Schedule marked (B) annexed to the said Act of the 48th year of King George III., and which were in force in regard to the said last-mentioned duties at the time of the repeal of such duties by an Act of the session holden in the fourth and fifth years of King William IV. c. 19, except as hereinafter excepted, shall severally and respectively be and become in full force and effect with respect to the duties hereby granted, and shall be severally and respectively duly observed, applied, practised and put in execution in the respective parts of Great Britain for assess

ing, raising, levying, collecting, receiving, accounting for and securing the said duties hereby granted, and otherwise in relation thereto, so far as the same are or shall be applicable, and are not repealed or superseded by and are consistent with the express provisions of this Act, as fully and effectually to all intents and purposes, as if the same powers, provisions, rules, regulations, directions and exemptions, fines, forfeitures, pains and penalties, were particularly repeated and reenacted in this Act with reference to the said duties hereby granted: excepting always out of this enactment any provisions for or in relation to compositions for the said duties set forth in the said Schedule marked (B), the exemption in Case II. of exemptions contained in the same schedule, and all the provisions of an Act of the session holden in the third and fourth years of King William IV. c. 39, and of an Act of the session holden in the third and fourth years of Her Majesty, c. 17.

III. Provided always, That no market garden or nursery ground occupied by a market gardener or nurseryman bond fide for the sale of the produce thereof, in the way of his trade or business, shall be included in the valuation of any dwelling-house and premises in charging the duties made payable by this Act.

IV. The duties granted by the said Act of the forty-eighth year of King George III.. and now payable in England, Wales, and Berwick-upon-Tweed and in Scotland respectively, upon dwellinghouses, according to the number of windows or lights therein as set forth in the Schedule marked (A), to the said Act annexed, shall, at

and upon the respective periods appointed for the commencement of the duties granted by this Act, severally cease and determine; save and except as to any of the said duties hereby repealed which, having been assessed or charged, shall not have been collected, levied, recovered and accounted for, and also as to all arrears of any of the said duties, and all penalties and forfeitures incurred at or before such respective periods, all which said duties and arrears of duties and penalties and forfeitures, shall respectively be collected, levied, recovered, paid and accounted for as if this Act had not been passed.

V. And whereas a certain rate of duty is now payable in respect of armorial bearings or ensigns used or worn by persons chargeable to the duties on houses, windows or lights made payable by the said Act of the forty-eighth year of King George III.

All persons who shall be chargeable to duty under this Act shall in respect of armorial bearings or ensigns used or worn by them be subject to the same rate of duty as they would have been liable to if they had been chargeable to the said duties made payable by the said Act.

VI. And whereas assessors of the duties of assessed taxes have in many parishes and places been already appointed for the present year: the persons so appointed such assessors shall, without any further or other appointment or authority, become and be assessors of the duties granted by this Act for the said year in and for the same parishes and places respectively.

The Schedule referred to; Containing the duties by this Act made payable upon inhabited dwelling-houses in and throughout Great Britain, according to the annual value thereof; that is to say:—

For every inhabited dwellinghouse which, with the household and other offices, yards and gardens therewith occupied and charged, is or shall be worth the rent of 20/. or upwards by the year—

Where any such dwelling-house shall be occupied by any person in trade who shall expose to sale and sell any goods, wares or merchandise in any shop or warehouse, being part of the same dwelling-house, and in the front and on the ground or basement story thereof; And also where any such dwellinghouse shall be occupied by any person who shall be duly licensed

by the laws in force to sell therein by retail beer, ale, wine or other liquors, although the room or rooms thereof in which any such liquors shall be exposed to sale, sold, drunk or consumed shall not be such shop or warehouse as aforesaid;

And also where any such dwellinghouse shall be a farmhouse occupied by a tenant or farm servant, and bond fide used for the purposes of husbandry only,

There shall be charged for every 20». of such annual value of any such dwelling-house, the sum of (Id.;

And where any such dwellinghouse shall not be occupied and used for any such purpose and in manner aforesaid, there shall be charged for every 20«. of such annual value thereof, the sum of 9d.

Whereas divers of Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects have assumed to themselves the titles of archbishop and bishops of a pretended province, and of pretended sees or dioceses, within the United Kingdom, under colour of an alleged authority given to them for that purpose by certain briefs, rescripts or letters apostolical from the See of Rome, and particularly by a certain brief, rescript or letters apostolical purporting to

* Extracts from the Concordat between the Queen of Spain and the Court of Rome are given at p. 464, post.

have been given at Rome on the 29th of September, 1850: and whereas by the Act of the tenth year of King George IV. c. 7, after reciting that the Protestant Episcopal Church of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, disci

filing and government thereof, and ikewise the Protestant Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the doctrine, discipline and government thereof, were by the respective Acts of union of England and Scotland, and of Great Britain and Ireland, established permanently and inviolably, and that the right and title of archbishops to