23. In some cases the incumbent's stipend depends wholly or in part upon pew rents. They can only legally be taken where authorised by a special or general Act of Parliament. In some churches they have been sanctioned by a special Act, which prescribes their application, and the proportion (if any) which shall go towards the incumbent's stipend. They are also sanctioned in certain cases by the Church Building Acts and New Parishes Acts. Where pew rents are fixed under these Acts, the incumbent is entitled to such portion of them as may be settled in the manner therein prescribed;[382] and he can recover that portion from the churchwardens by an action at law.[383] An incumbent, who has a vote for a parliamentary borough as a resident therein, and who receives for his own use part of the pew rents of the church, which is also situate in the borough, but which is his freehold, has a parliamentary vote for the county as a freeholder, since he does not occupy the church within the meaning of 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 45, s. 24.[384] 24. The incumbents of certain ancient benefices above the yearly value of £50 are liable to the payment to Queen Anne's Bounty of first fruits in the first year of their incumbency and tenths in succeeding years. The first fruits are the amount of one year's value of the benefice as recorded in the _valor beneficiorum_ or King's Books compiled in the sixteenth century, and the tenths are one-tenth of the same amount. They were originally paid to the Pope, and were annexed by Henry VIII. to the Crown, until Queen Anne bestowed them on the Bounty which bears her name, to form a fund for the augmentation of poor livings. Where they are payable, first fruits are due three months after admission to the benefice, and tenths annually at Christmas. An incumbent is only chargeable with the whole of the first fruits if he remains incumbent at the end of two years from the occurrence of the vacancy which he was appointed to fill. He is liable to none, or to one-fourth, one-half or three-fourths, if he dies or is removed within the first, second, third, or fourth half-year after that event.[385] Two Acts passed in 1706 and 1707[386] discharged from the payment of first fruits and tenths all benefices which at the time were under the annual value of £50, except that those of which the tenths had been previously granted away by the Crown to other parties were still to continue liable to tenths only. Other exemptions have been granted in favour of particular benefices at different times; and in 1837, out of 10,498 benefices with and without cure of souls, only 4898 remained liable to tenths, 4500 of that number being also liable to first fruits.[387]