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beautifully renovated church was re-opened in January, 1859, but great difficulty was experienced in allocating the seats, and much ill-feeling prevailed. The church is totally inadequate to the spiritual wants of the parish, and yet it has scarcely ever a crowded or even moderately full congregation. This arises from absenteeism, occasioned by objections to the allotment of seats. One party urgently pressed for an entirely free church, while another talked of "a suit for perturbation in the Ecclesiastical Court and an action on the case at common law" against the churchwardens for disturbing him in the use of his pew. The vicar, in a printed address, tried to cast oil on the troubled waters; and the churchwardens, Messrs. T. Scott, W. Holyoake, E. Hadley, and E. Jackson, declared that the matter did not legally rest with them. What is to be the final issue of these conflicting elements I cannot divine.

There are a few curious inscriptions in the churchyard, and on the top of the north boundary wall lies an old stone figure, with the features gone, but the hands are in the attitude of prayer; and the tradition is that the individual whom it represents sold himself to the devil for certain advantages, and one of the stipulations was that when he died his body should not be buried either in or out of the churchyard, but this was evaded by his giving orders to be buried under the wall and the figure to be placed upon it. Strange that the man of sin 'should in all our popular legends be represented as so easily outwitted! But the boundary has been enlarged since "Tom's monument" was fixed, and how far this movement affects the contract I am unable to say.

Rev. G. W. Murray is the vicar of Bromsgrove; value of the living, £800; patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Worcester; church accommodation, 1,050; free, 550.

There are many extraordinary names in this parish, including Vigo Piece, Honier Boon, Oven Piece, Dicel Dole, Dib Dale, Beach Dole, Firy Hill, Warding, Twatling Wood, Dole Meadow, Rattlestone, Big and Little Mole Horn, Big Ambery, the King's Chair, Tickeridge Piece, Bungay Lane, Bewell