figned and fubfcribed fhall go free. Printed votes, and proceedings in parliament, and news-papers, fent without covers, or in covers open at the fides, and figned on the outfide by a member, or directed to a member, according to notice given by him to the poftmafter general, or his deputy at Edinburgh or Dublin, are to go free. 1 Clerks in the offices of the fecretaries of state, and poft office, being duly licensed, may continue to frank the votes, and proceedings in parliament, and newspapers, as heretofore; fending the fame without covers, or in covers open at the fides. The poftmafter general, and officers under him, may fearch any packet fent without a cover, or in a cover open at the fides; and if they fhall find any other paper or thing inclofed therein, or there fhall be any writing other than the fuperfcription upon the printed paper, or cover, the whole of fuch packet is to be charged with the postage. If any perfon fhall, after 1ft June, 1764, counterfeit the writing of any perfon in the fuperfcription of any letter or packet, to avoid the poftage, he fhall be adjudged of felony, and be tranfported for feven years. Remarks on the above act. Thefe are the heads of the act; to which the poftmafter general, in an advertisement, reciting its contents, has added the following notice: viz. “That all carriers, coachmen, watermen, wherrymen, difperfers of news-papers, higlers, and all other perfons whatsoever, hereafter detected in the illegal collecting, conveying, or delivering of letters and packets, will be profecuted with the utmoft feverity. The penalty is five pounds for every letter fo collected or delivered, contrary to law, and one hundred pounds for every week fuch practice is continued: one moiety to his majefty, and the other to the informer." Upon examination before the committee, it appeared that the poftage of freed letters amounted, one year with another, to 170,0001. Thofe, on whom this abridgement of the privilege of franking will fall the heaviest, seem to be the clerks in the fecretaries of ftate's office; fome of the clerks of the poft-office acknowledged before the house, that the profits ac-. cruing to them from franking news-papers, &c. amounted from 8001. to 12001. a year, each; and to one in particular, 17001. a year; while the gentlemen belonging to the fecretaries of ftate's offices, to whom the great fecrets of government are neceffarily entrusted, have no more than 1001. a year falary, and this privilege in no proportion to the poft-office clerks. It is fomewhat extraordinary, therefore, as a writer in their behalf ob It perhaps may not be generally known, that all the important difpatches between our minifters abroad, and thofe at home, are written in cypher; it neceffarily happens, therefore, that all the confidential letters are entrusted to the decyphering clerks, before either his majesty or his minifters can know a fyllable of their contents. [K] 3 ferves, ferves, that, how many penfions and falaries are daily granted and augmented, whenever the juftice or the generofity of the legislature is applied to, no other notice fhould be taken of these gentlemen but to involve them in a prohibition, which will almost annihilate their former means of fubfiftence. For what now remains of the perquifite of franking news-papers, will become almoft the entire property of perfons, who have no other title to it than that of prescription. Heads of the act for the better regulating of buildings, and preventing mischiefs that may happen by fire, within the weekly bills of mortality, and other places therein mentioned, which received the royal assent on the 5th of April, 1764. HE preamble, after reciting part of the act of 11 Geo. I. for the better regulation of buildings, &c. fo far as relates to pulling down or re-building partywalls between houfe and houfe, confined to cafes in which one of the houses is to be erected; or party-walls may be fo far out of repair as to render it neceffary to pull down and rebuild the fame, although neither of the adjoining houfes require to be rebuilt; or party-walls may be fo far defective and bad, by falling out of the perpendicular, as to become unfafe for the builder of the next houfe to reft timbers thereon, or oblige fuch builder to run his timbers quite through, whereby fire may be more readily communi cated from house to house, contrary to the intentions of the faid act; fubfumes, that the workmen appointed by the faid act to examine party-walls are often equally divided in opinion about the neceffity of pulling down and rebuild. ing them, whereby a certificate from the major part cannot be ob tained, and the purposes of the faid act are in many inftances evaded : Wherefore it is enacted, that, from and after paffing this prefent act, fo much of the faid act as relates to party walls, within the city and liberty of Westminster, or any parish, precinct, or place comprifed within the weekly bills of mortality, or within the parishes of Saint Mary le Bone, Paddington, Chelsea, and Saint Pancras, in the county of Middlesex (except the city of London and liberty thereof, and alfo except the party-walls of houfes on the river Thames, below bridge) fhall extend, and be conftructed to extend, in all cafes whatsoever, within the faid liberties, &c. aforefaid, where it is or fhall be neceffary to pull down and rebuild any party-wall, whether any of the adjoining houfes fhall, or fhall not, be, or require to be, rebuilt or new built. That in cafe the major part of the workmen appointed to view the party-wall of any fuch houfe or houfes intended to be pulled down, fhall not, within one calendar month, after fuch appointment, fign a certificate; it fhall be lawful for any two or more of his majefty's juftices of the peace, refiding in or near the place, upon application of the owner, or occupiers, of either houfes, houfes, to name and appoint one other able workman, to be added to the workmen appointed by virtue of the faid recited act, who, on ten days notice given, fhall meet, and view the party-wall propofed to be taken down; and they, or the major part of them, certifying that the fame is defective, and ought to be pulled down, it fhall be lawful to and for the owner, or occupier, to caufe the fame to be pulled down and rebuilt, and a moiety of the expences there of recoverable. That, to prevent the fatal confequences of fire, all party-walls built within Weftminster, &c. after the expiration of three calendar months from the paffing hereof, fhall be two and a half bricks thick in the cellar, two bricks thick upwards to the garret floor, and one brick and a half thick at least eighteen inches above the roofs or gutters; to be built of frone, or good found burnt brick, and none other. That, after the expiration of the faid time, no timbers (except thofe of the girders, binding joifts, and templets under the fame) nor timbers of the roof (except purloins or kerbs) be laid into partywalls; and that the ends of girders and binding joifts, lying within fuch walls, fhall not exceed nine inches, the ends of which in adjoining houfes fhall be at least fourteen inches diftant. That nine inches at leaft of folid brick-work fhall be between the ends of all lintels, wall plates, and bond timbers, which thall be laid in or upon the walls of the fore and back fronts of all houfes which fhall adjoin to each other. bricklayer, or workman, fhall erect, or caufe to be erected or built, any party-wall, contrary to the directions of the act, 、or ufe, in building, any other than good · found-burnt bricks, or fhall lay any timber in any party-wall con trary to the true intent and meaning thereof; he fhall, for every offence, forfeit and pay 501. That from and after the first day of July, 1764, no timbers whatfoever be laid or placed under the hearth of any room, or within nine inches of the funnel or flue of the chimnies, of any house within the limits aforefaid. That no timber buildings whatfoever be built adjoining to any house, so as the timbers thereof be laid in the wall of any fuch house, built or to be built, under the like penalty of 501. And that no perfon, on any protence whatsoever, fhall cut into or wound any party-wall, erected or built pursuant to the directions of the act, nor lay into the fame any other timbers than are thereby allowed, under the like penalty of 501. That from and after the first day of July, 1764, every mafter builder, who fhall erect or build any houfe within the limits aforefaid, fhall, within fourteen days after it is covered in, caufe the fame to be furveyed by one or more furveyors, who are to make oath, before a juftice of the peace, that the fame has been built and erected agreeable to the directions of the act. The mafter builder, for every fuch neglect or default, forfeits 501. That in all cafes where difputes may arife between the owners of That if any builder, mafter adjoining houfes, concerning any [K4 parts parts intermixed over or under each other, in such manner that a party-wall cannot be effectually built upon the old foundation, without pulling down fome parts of the one or the other; the juftices of the peace, in the general or quarter fefiions on application made to them, are authorised to examine into the difpute, iffue out their order to the fheriff, or other proper officer, to fummon a jury to view the premises, try the facts, and fix the value of any damages that may arife by verdict ; the juftices order on fuch verdict declared to be final. The directors of infurance offices within London and Westminfter are authorised, upon application of any perfon interested in or intitled unto any houfes or buildings burnt down or damaged by fire, or where there is a fufpicion that owners, occupiers, &c. who have infured fuch houses, have been guilty of fraud, or wilfully fetting them on fire, with a view of gaining to themselves the infurance money, to caufe the faid money to be laid out and expended, towards the rebuilding and repairing fuch houses; unless the party claiming the infurance money fhall, within fixty days after fuch claim, give fecurity to the directors, that the fame be laid out and expended as aforefaid. Expence of party-walls pulled down and rebuilt, in purfuance of the act of 11 Geo. I. or those built in purfuance of this act, after the 1ft of July, 1764, to be eftimated between parties at the rate of 61. 10s. per rod. That after three calendar months from paffing the act, the back, and iore-fronts, and party-walls of all future buildings, be erected of ftone, or of good found hard wellburnt bricks, and none other, from the breast-summer upwards; and that the breast-summer in all houfes fhall not be higher than the floor of the one - pair of stairs. In cafes of fire, the keepers of other large engines are equally intitled with parish engines to the reward granted by act 6 Anne. Actions are reftricted to fix months after the fact is done. The penalties are to be levied, upon conviction, by warrant of two or more juftices of the peace, by diftrefs of goods; one moiety to the informer, the other to the poor of the parish and for want of fuch distress, the offender to be imprifoned for fix months: or the penalty may be fued for and recovered in any of the courts of Westminster. Parishioners and inhabitants of the parish where any offence against the act fhall be committed (except perfons receiving alms) thall be admitted and allowed compe, tent witneffes. The act deemed and declared to be a public act. beef of the fame goodness has ufually been in the month of March for fome years paft, to which point all the witneffes were brought in giving their evidence, as it was thought neceffary, in determining a comparative price, to adhere to the fame month, to the fame meat, and of the fame goodnefs. The witneffes ftated the prefent price of the choice pieces of the best beef to be, to the confumer, four-pence, and four-pence farthing per pound; the best pieces of inferior beef three-pence, or three-pence farthing; and the courfe pieces of beef, in general, from seven-farthings to two-pence half-penny, and two-pence threefarthings, which is one half-penny dearer than the fame have ufually been in the month of March. An eminent victualler of the Eaft-India company's fhips agreed with the butchers in their representation of the prefent price of provifions, and added, that he did not recollect that the fame forts had ever been fold for a higher price during the laft war and a Virginia merchant confirmed this evidence by the comparative prices of his own charge, in victualling his fhips for Virginia, which he faid he victualled in March, 1763, at the rate of twenty-four or twenty-five fhil, lings per hundred weight for beef: whereas he, this year, gave twenty-feven fhillings for the fame weight and fort. The butchers alfo admitted the prefent price of mutton to be higher than it used to be in March, but they ftated the increase differently from a farthing to a half-penny per pound. To difcover the caufes of this increase of price, fome falefmen were examined, who alledged, first, the greater demand from an increase in the prefent confumption of London; but, upon ftricter examination, they produced no con-, clufive, or indeed, probable evidence, to prove any fuch increase of habitation, or of confumption, as they fuppofed. They then accounted for this increase of the price of meat by the want of pork at market, proceeding from the great plenty of acorns in 1762, which induced all the feeders to fatten their whole stock of hogs in that year; and this extraordinary flaughter they faid is not yet replaced; and that the want of one article, in the general provifions of fo populous a city as London, has neceffarily advanced the price of other fpecies: the whole demand acting upon the whole quantity of the different forts of provifion as upon one and the same subject. They added alfo, that the wet feafon had much leffened the weight of even fat cattle; that the great fcarcity of fodder, in 1762, had reduced the breed and stock ; and that the failure of the crop of turnips in feveral counties, this year, had prevented thofe counties fattening the ufual quantities of beafts. They affigned alfo the low price of hides and tallow, as an additional reason. further examination, all the falefmen and butchers admitted that the prefent high price is not entire ly or exclufively the effect of natural caufes, but an artificial price, refulting from combinations, and But upon the |