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(3.) Where the trustees of any such property are the kirk session, or the heritors and kirk session, of any parish, or the kirk session or deacons' court, or managers, or vestry of a congregation belonging to any religious denomination to the number, whether alone or conjoined with others, of not less than six persons, the said trustees shall from time to time appoint certain of their own number, not exceeding three, and the parish council of the parish shall from time to time appoint such number of additional persons as the Board may in each case approve, to act together as a committee of management of the said property, and such management shall be transferred to the committee accordingly.

(4.) Where trustees hold any property for the benefit of the inhabitants of, or for any public purpose (other than as hereinbefore mentioned) connected with, two or more parishes, the parish councils of the parishes concerned may, if the Board so decide, from time to time appoint, in such manner or rotation and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed in any order of the Board, such number of additional persons to act along with the trustees of the said property as may be approved by the Board in each case.

(5.) The term of office of a trustee appointed under this section shall be not longer than three years, but a trustee shall hold office until his successor is appointed, and shall be eligible for re-appointment.

(6.) The heritors of any parish may transfer the property of any churchyard which they hold to the parish council, and the parish council, if they accept such transfer, shall thereafter hold such churchyard for the same purposes and subject to the same rights for and subject to which it was held by such heritors, and shall have and may exercise and perform all the powers and duties before such transfer vested in or imposed on such heritors in relation to the churchyard transferred (except any power or duty of enlarging or extending such churchyard and assessing for the cost of such enlargement or extension): provided that the costs of maintenance and management of such churchyard after such transfer shall, if and so far as they require to be defrayed out of any rate, be a charge upon the poor rate and provided also that such transfer shall not alter or transfer any liability to assess for the repayment of any debt or the incidence of any assessment levied for such repayment. After such transfer the powers and duties transferred shall no longer be exercised and performed by such heritors.

(7.) The Board may by order prescribe rules (1) as to the form in which the accounts of any property dealt with in this section shall be kept, and (2) as to the publication of the said accounts.

(8.) Whilst a person is trustee of any property or revenues falling within the provisions of this section, he shall not, nor shall his wife or any of his children, receive any benefit therefrom.

(9.) The provisions of this section with respect to the appointment of trustees shall not apply to any charity until the expiration of forty years from the date of the foundation thereof, or, in the case of a charity founded before the passing of this Act by a donor, or by several donors, any one of whom is living at the passing of this Act, until the expiration of forty years from the passing of this Act, unless with the consent of the surviving donor or donors.

PART VI.-SUPPLEMENTAL.

31. Use of schoolrooms.-The parish electors on the application of not fewer than six of their number and the parish council (including a landward committee) shall be entitled to use, free of charge, at all reasonable times, except during ordinary school hours, and after reasonable notice, for any purpose under this Act, or under the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845, the Education Acts, or the principal Act, including public meetings in connection with the candidature of any person for the county council or the parish council, any room in a school receiving a grant out of moneys provided by Parliament, and any room the

expense of maintaining which is payable out of any rate levied by the parish council.

Provided that this enactment shall not authorise the use of any room used as part of a private dwelling-house.

Provided also that any expense reasonably incurred by the person or persons having control over the room, or any damage done to the room or its contents in consequence of its being so used, shall be defrayed by such parish electors or the parish council who, when the meeting is called for the purposes of any candidature, shall be entitled to recover such expense from the person or persons calling the meeting.

32. Incorporation of parish council.-Every parish council elected in pursuance of this Act shall be incorporated under the name of the parish council of the parish, with power to sue and be sued, and shall have perpetual succession.

33. Committees of parish councils.-A parish council may from time to time appoint, from their own number, committees for the exercise of any powers which can properly be exercised by committees, and no committee of a parish council shall unless re-appointed hold office beyond the next statutory meeting of the council following its appointment, provided that a parish council shall not delegate to a committee any power of raising money by rate or loan.

34. Appointment of joint committees.-Any parish councils, or parish councils and county councils or district committees or town councils or burgh commissioners, may, from time to time, join in appointing, out of their respective bodies, a joint committee for any purpose of this Act in which they are jointly interested, and the provisions of section seventy-six of the principal Act, with regard to the appointment and powers of joint committees of county councils, or of county councils and town councils, shall, with the necessary variations, apply to joint committees appointed under this section.

35. Parish accounts.-(1.) (a.) All receipts of a parish council relating to or arising out of powers transferred to them by Part III. of this Act shall be carried to a general parish fund; and

(b.) All receipts of a parish council or landward committee in relation to or arising out of powers conferred upon them by Part IV. of this Act shall be carried to a special parish fund; and

(c.) All payments in relation to or arising out of the said powers respectively shall be made out of the said funds respectively.

A separate bank account shall be kept for each fund and all cheques for payment of moneys shall be signed by two members of the parish council or landward committee, as the case may be, and be countersigned by the clerk. The Board shall make rules as to the method in which payments shall be made by a parish council and by a landward committee.

(2.) A parish council and a landward committee shall keep such accounts of the above-mentioned funds, and of the sums raised by rates, as will prevent a rate from being applied to any purpose to which it is not properly applicable. The Board shall prescribe forms in which such accounts shall be kept.

36. Audit of accounts.-The provisions contained in sections sixty-eight to seventy inclusive of the principal Act with respect to the making up and auditing of the accounts of a county council shall, with the substitution of " parish council" for "county council," and "clerk of the parish council" for "county clerk," and "parish " for " "county" or "burgh," and "the Board" for "the Secretary for Scotland," apply to the making up and auditing of the accounts of a parish council, including those of a landward committee, subject to the following provisions, that is to say:

(1.) The accounts of the parish council shall be audited by an auditor appointed by the Board.

(2.) The Board may, by order, prescribe rules modifying the enactments as to the time and place of audit.

(3.) The Board may prescribe a scale for the remuneration of auditors in respect of their duties under this section.

(4.) The accounts of a parish council shall be transmitted annually by the clerk of the council as soon as may be after the fifteenth day of May but not later than the first day of August to the auditor appointed by the Board.

37. Local annual budget.—At a meeting in the month of July in each local financial year every parish council shall cause to be submitted to them the estimates of the receipts and expenditure of such council, including those of a landward committee or other committee thereof, during that financial year, whether on account of property, contributions, rates, loans, or otherwise, and shall revise such estimates (other than those of any landward committee), and authorise such expenditure and make such provision for meeting the same, as they shall approve.

38. Borrowing by parish councils.—(1.) If and so long as the amount of loans owing by any parish council for the time being exceeds one-fifth of the annual value of the lands and heritages within such parish as ascertained for the purposes of the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845, no further loan, other than a temporary loan in terms of section eighty-nine of the said Act, shall be raised by such parish council without the consent of the Board.

(2.) Where money has been borrowed by a parish council, or by a parochial board, the parish council shall, until the loan has been extinguished, within twenty-one days after the expiration of each local financial year, transmit to the Secretary for Scotland a return in such form, and verified in such manner, as he may from time to time prescribe, showing the amount of the loan still outstanding, and the steps which have been taken to comply with the provisions of this or any other Act in regard to its payment and discharge.

39. Duty of Board and of county and town councils and burgh commissioners to bring Act into operation.-(1.) It shall be the duty of the Board, and of every county council and town council, and of burgh commissioners in a police burgh, to exercise all powers which may be requisite for bringing this Act into full operation as soon as may be after the passing thereof.

(2.) Where the Board are authorised or required by any Act to make or confirm any order, rule, or regulation, or to give any consent, sanction, or approval, or otherwise to act, they may cause a local inquiry to be held in terms of subsection eight of section twenty-five of this Act, and the provisions of that subsection shall apply accordingly.

40. Chairman of district committee and of parish council to be justice.—The chairman of a district committee and the chairman of a parish council, unless a woman or personally disqualified by any Act, shall by virtue of their office be justices of the peace for the county in which the district or parish is situate.

41. Absence from meetings.-If a parish councillor is absent from meetings of the parish council for more than six months consecutively, then, except in case of illness, or for some reason approved by the parish council, his office shall, on the expiration of the said six months, become vacant, and the vacancy may be filled as a casual vacancy.

42. Protection of rights of way.-(1.) It shall be the duty of a town council or in a police burgh of the burgh commissioners, and of a district committee, and,

where there is no district committee, of the county council, to assert, protect, and keep open and free from obstruction or encroachment any right of way, whether wholly within or partly within and partly without the burgh, police burgh, district, or county respectively, which it may appear to them respectively that the public have acquired by grant, prescriptive use, or otherwise, and they may respectively, for the purpose of carrying this section into effect, institute and defend any legal proceedings and generally take such steps as they may deem expedient.

(2.) Where a parish council, or any six parish electors, of a parish have represented to the district committee or, where there is no district committee, to the county council, that any public right of way within the district, or beneficial to any inhabitants of the district, has been or is likely to be shut, or obstructed, or encroached upon, it shall be the duty of the district committee, or, where there is no district committee, of the county council, if they are satisfied that the representation is well founded, to take such proceedings as may be requisite for the vindication of the right of way, and if the district committee refuse or fail to take proceedings in consequence of such representation, the parish council, or the electors who made the representation, may petition the county council, and if the county council so resolve, the powers and duties of the district committee under this section, in relation to such right of way, shall be transferred to the county council.

(3.) Any expenditure incurred by a county council or a district committee thereof in connection with any legal or other proceedings, under the two preceding sub-sections, or either of them, shall be defrayed out of the road rate for the district, or, where a county is not divided into districts, out of the road rate for the county. Provided always, that any litigant who is successful against the county council or district committee shall not be assessed for such portion of the road rate as is rendered necessary by such expenditure.

(4.) Within a county, district, or parish respectively it shall be in the power of the county council, or district committee, or parish council, and of any member or members of the public, with the consent of any one of these bodies, to erect and maintain guide posts and direction notices upon any right of way.

43. Power to heirs of entail to grant land belonging to an entailed estate.-Any heir of entail in possession of land in Scotland, and the trustee, tutor, and curator of such heir of entail, if in minority or subject to any legal incapacity, may give and grant to a parish council, or to the commissioners of a police burgh, land belonging to the entailed estate to be used for public recreation, but not exceeding in the whole twenty acres: Provided that no such grant shall be effectual unless the heir of entail next in succession of lawful age and any persons in right of heritable securities or other charges affecting such land shall consent thereto, or unless, in the event of the persons in right of such heritable securities or other charges refusing such consent, the sheriff, upon the application of the heir of entail in possession, duly intimated to such persons (who shall be entitled to appear and object), shall have found that the lands comprised in such heritable securities or charges, other than the lands proposed to be granted, afford adequate security; and the land so given and granted shall not be liable to nor affected by any other rights, titles, trusts, interests, or encumbrances to, in, or upon the same whatsoever, and such heir of entail shall not thereby be subject to nor incur any forfeiture or irritancy under the entail thereof: Provided always, that such land shall not be within a quarter of a mile of the mansion house in the natural possession of the proprietor, or part of any gardens, orchards, or enclosures adjacent to the mansion house which have usually been in the natural possession of the proprietor.

44. Formation of lighting and scavenging districts, and provision of public baths. —(1.) It shall be lawful in a county for a parish council or for any two or more

parish councils, or for not fewer than ten parish electors of any landward parish or of the landward part of any parish partly landward and partly burghal, to make a requisition in writing to the district committee of the county council, or when a county is not divided into districts to the county council, calling upon them to form such parish or parishes or landward part of a parish or any portion or portions thereof into a special district for the following purposes or any one or more of them; that is to say,

(a) The lighting of the special district and the adoption for such purpose by the district committee or county council as the case may be of the provisions contained in sections ninety-nine to one hundred and five inclusive of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, or any one or more of them :

(b) The scavenging of, and the removal of dust, ashes, and other refuse from, the streets, roads, footpaths, lands and premises in such special district, and the adoption for such purposes by the district committee or the county council, as the case may be, of the provisions contained in sections one hundred and seven to one hundred and twenty-seven, and two hundred and fifty-three to two hundred and fifty-five, inclusive, of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, or any one or more of them :

(c) The provision and maintenance of public baths or bathing places, washhouses, and drying grounds, and the adoption for such purposes by the district committee or county council, as the case may be, of the provisions contained in sections three hundred and nine to three hundred and fourteen, inclusive, of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, or any one or more of them.

(2.) Upon such requisition being received, the district committee or county council, as the case may be, shall be bound to meet, after twenty-one clear days notice, and shall consider the propriety of forming such parish or landward part of a parish or portion thereof into a special district, and shall by resolution either approve or disapprove of the formation of a special district (which shall in no case include a police burgh or any portion thereof) for the purposes stated in the requisition or any one or more of them, and, if they approve thereof, shall define the boundaries of such special district and specify which of the provisions of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, referred to in the preceding sub-section are to be adopted therein. Such resolution shall be final, subject to the provisions of sub-section three of this section, and in the event of the district committee or county council, as the case may be, disapproving of the formation of a special district as proposed in a requisition, it shall not be competent to make another requisition to the same effect until after the expiration of twelve months. A copy of every such resolution shall be forthwith published in one or more newspapers circulating in the district and transmitted to the Board and to the county

council.

(3.) Where the proposed special district is co-extensive with or comprises the whole or part of the area of any special drainage or water supply district formed under the Public Health Acts, the consent of the county council shall be required to any resolution approving of the formation of a special district under this section, and in giving or refusing such consent the county council shall take into consideration the whole circumstances of the case, including the amount of the rates levied for the time being under the Public Health Acts and the principal Act within the proposed special district, and the county council may consent to the resolution either with or without modifications.

(4.) On the adoption by a district committee or county council, as the case may be, of any of the provisions above mentioned, such provisions shall have effect within or in relation to the special district, subject to the provisions of the Fourth Schedule to this Act annexed.

(5.) The area of a special district formed under this section may be enlarged or altered, and two or more special districts may be combined, from time to time, by

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