PARISH

In English law. A circuit of ground, committed to the charge of one parson or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein. 1 Bl. Comm. 111. Wilson v. State, 34 Ohio St. 199. The precinct of a parish church, and the particular charge of a secular priest Cowell. An ecclesiastical division of a town or district, subject to the ministry of one pastor. Brande. In New England. A corporation established for the maintenance of public worship, which may be coterminous with a town, or include only part of it A precinct or parish is a corporation established solely for the purpose of maintaining public worship, and its powers are limited to that object. It may raise money for building and keeping in repair its meeting house and supporting its minister, but for no other purpose. A town, is a civil and political corporation, established for municipal purposes. They may both subsist together in the same territory, and be composed of the same persons. Milford v. Godfrey, 1 Pick. (Mass.) 91. In Louisiana. A teiTitorial division of the state corresponding to what is elsewhere called a “county.” Parish apprentice. In English law. The children of parents unable to maintain them may, by law, be apprenticed, by the guardians or overseers of their parish, to such persons as may be willing to receive them as apprentices. Such children are called “parish apprentices.” 2 Steph. Comm. 230. Parish church. This expression has various significations. It is applied sometimes to a select body of Christians, forming a local spiritual association, and sometimes to the building in which the public worship of the inhabitants of a parish is celebrated ; but the true legal notion of a parochial church is a consecrated place, having attached to it the rights of burial and the administration of the sacraments. Story, J., Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cranch, 326, 3 L. Ed. 735. Parish clerk. In English law. An officer, in former times often in holy orders, and appointed to officiate at the altar; now his duty consists chiefly in making responses in church to the minister. By common, law he has a freehold in his office, but it seems now to be falling into desuetude. 2 Steph. Comm. 700; Mozley & Whitley. Parish constable. A petty constable exercising his functions within a given parish. Mozley & Whitley. Parish court. The name of a court established in each parish in Louisiana, and corresponding to the county courts or common pleas courts in the other states. It has a limited civil jurisdiction, besides general probate powers. Parish officers. Church wardens, overseers, and constables. Parish priest. In English law. The parson ; a minister who holds a parish as a benefice. If the predial tithes are appropriated, he is called “rector;” if impropriated, “vicar.” Wharton.