the Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn, the Master | the Charity Commissioners, proposing to of the Charterhouse, the Governors of reduce the number of the pensioners from Chelsea and Greenwich Hospitals, the twelve to six. Some other reforms were President of the College of Physicians, suggested; but the whole proposal was and the Masters of Christ's and Caius manifestly too timid and compromising to Colleges, Cambridge. At the same time, command success, particularly when it was Christopher Tancred's whimsical provisos remembered that the estate, which when of keeping up for ever a deer park at Tancred died, was worth something less Wixley was abrogated; and the estate than £1,000, had now increased in value placed on so satisfactory a footing that to more than £4,000. The Charity Cominstead of yielding something under £1,000 missioners were accordingly solicited from a year, it produces, at the present day, various quarters to take vigorous measures, upwards of £4,000. He need hardly ob- and they did so with a vengeance. As a serve how the selection of these trustees first step, they sent their assistant Comwas wisely designed to secure the proper missioner, Mr. Martin, to report on the fulfilment of the second object of the charity condition of the Hospital. He made a -the maintenance of the twelve student- very minute examination of its internal ships, four in law at Lincoln's Inn, four in arrangements, in which he was assisted medicine at Caius College, Cambridge, and by the fussy ingenuity of the inmates, four in divinity at Christ's College, Cam- men of, perhaps, a once large experience, bridge. He should observe that both with who had withdrawn their powers of obserregard to these studentships, and the vation from the world to concentrate them pensioners of the "Hospital at Wixley, within the narrow limits of their own the beneficiaries were strictly enjoined to circle. The Commissioners came to the be members of the Church of England. generally approved conclusion that the HosHe was not now concerned with the ques- pital as an almshouse should be done away tion as it affected Wixley; but so long as with, and that the income should be disthe Colleges retained their connection with pensed in the shape of out-door pensions, the Church he saw no hardship in the pro- supplementary to other sources of income, vision. The Church of England offered to educated gentlemen, so that no recia most ample area, when the benefits to be pient should run a risk of collision with conferred were so limited; and Christ's and any brother in misfortune. The scheme Caius Colleges were foundations which it also provided that when the number of was an advantage, and not a detriment, to inmates had been reduced to four, these enter, particularly when £100 a year was should be withdrawn from the building and the result of the transaction. As to the the establishment broken up. The charity Wixley Hospital, he must confess that it would thus in time have assumed a shape had proved a failure. It would be easy to similar in organization to the Royal Liteconceive the evils which would result from rary Fund and similar institutions. Emtwelve bachelors of fifty, afflicted with an bodied as this plan was in the original inability to get on in life or otherwise scheme, and consequently in the Bill as it they would not have offered themselves as first came before the House last year, it candidates for the Tancred benevolence was also accepted by the Select Committee, living together on a common income barely and therefore was embodied in the Bill of sufficient to keep one gentleman in decent the present Session, so he hoped it would circumstances, in little rooms cut up out of be cordially approved by the House. Rea small country house, touching which the garding the studentships, Tancred had laid founder had the vanity to propose that the down these three conditions:-First, that buildings should never be enlarged or the beneficiaries should be natives of Great altered. Having to dine together and live Britain, thereby shutting out Irishmen, in community without any special occupa- colonists, and the whole world beside; tion, religious vocation, or manly sports, secondly, that they should be members of soured in temper by the degradation of the Church of England; and, thirdly, that being regarded as recipients of charity, they should, as students, be educated at and with nothing to do but to kill time, the particular institutions, in relation to these masculine old maids would naturally which the list of governors had been settled. take to smoking, eavesdropping, and quar- The limitation to members of the Church relling, if not something worse. In 1865 of England was objected to; but surely, for the case of the Hospital became so flagrant an endowment limited in amount and in the that its governors submitted a scheme to number of possible recipients as this was, VOL. CXCI. [THIRD SERIES.]

I

it opened a field of distribution sufficiently | mittee to introduce the Bill in the shape in wide to secure an unquestionable power which they had cast it, leaving it to the of selection among excellent competitors. House to amend it in Committee if they What better schools of law, of medi- pleased. Mr. Tancred had devised the cine, or divinity existed than those which advowson of Wixley to the charity; but this testator had selected? Of Lincoln's Lord Keeper Henley pronounced this deInn he need not make himself the ad- vise illegal. Consequently the patronage vocate. As to Caius College, it had, of the living had since continued in alien from the days of its second founder, been hands, although a small provision had been a renowned school of medicine; while the made to the clergyman who was constituted fame of Christ's College as a seminary warden of the Hospital. The scheme proof divines was incontestible. Yet the posed a permanent addition to the living, Charity Commissioners, for some reason of consequent on its being purchased by the their own, wished to make a clean sweep governors, and then the advowson being of all restrictions, leaving the governors of sold with the estate. The Committee rethe charity to elect the students out of the tained the whole of the land, probably lookwide world; and whether these would, in ing upon it as the best security on which consequence, take their degrees in Eng- the charity fund could be put; and yet land, in France, in the United States, or owing, he hoped, to the misadventure of in China, was to be a matter of the most the provision for the increase of the living complete indifference. The Bill introduced having come earlier in the scheme, rejected by his noble Friend the Vice President of the proposal of augmentation, with the the Council, as the mouthpiece of the view, no doubt, of subsequently rejecting Charity Commissioners, for giving effect to the complex transaction affecting the sale their scheme, appeared in a shape which of the estate. He would be glad, if his might have become usual with regard to en- Bill got into Committee, that this proactments brought before Parliament to give vision would be reinstated, without prelegislative sanction to such proposals, but judice to the retention of the estate. It against which he felt bound to protest. was absurd to argue that the purchase of Instead of the scheme being cast, in proper the living was contrary to Tancred's inlegal language, into a Bill, which might in tentions. In the first place, Tancred wished time become a statute, it was with all the the living to belong to his trust; and, in amplifications and fine language incident to the second place, regarding the pension a report, and out-of-place, in a law, trans- portion of it as a provision for meritorious ferred just as it stood within the four corners gentlemen outworn by work, he would ask, of the Bill, with a few words of prefatory who could be so meritorious a recipient of its enactment, professing to give validity to benefits as a clergyman broken down by the subsequent essay as the scheme of the devoted services in some overgrown town or Charity Commission. This Bill was referred unhealthy colony? In fact, the vicar of Wixto a Select Committee, which altered the ley might and ought to be the first Tanscheme in various particulars; and yet, the cred pensioner. The Committee also struck Preamble having been, by the forms of the out the extension of the pensions to women. House, first adopted, it still professed to Tancred, no doubt, was a misogynist; but state what had become an untruth-that he thought this a poor reason, now that the the scheme so propounded and proposed Hospital was to be extinguished, to refuse to be enacted was that of the Charity this concession. Such was the Bill of Commission. His Bill, which substantially which he moved the second reading. All embodied all the alterations of the Com- agreed that the Hospital, as it stood at mittee, did not follow this bad example, present, was a crying evil. The Bill probut adopted the ordinary form of other posed a remedy for this offence. Its other Bills. The Select Committee of 1867 details might or might not be open to disrestored the vested rights of Lincoln's cussion; they could, however, be taken in Inn and of the two Colleges as reci hand in Committee. For the sake, howpients of the gift, together with the limita- ever, of abating the Hospital, he contended tion to members of the Church of England that the House ought to give the second of these studentships. In this he cordially reading now. concurred; but there were other points embodied in the amended scheme, with which he could not so thoroughly agree, although he felt it was most respectful to the Com

If it refused to do so, it would render itself responsible for all the evils which were making. Wixley a byword.

Motion made, and Question proposed, port, re-introduced the Bill in the same. "That the Bill be now read a second time." (Mr. Beresford Hope.)

MR. BENTINCK seconded the Motion. MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE said, the hon. Member had not stated precisely the nature of the scheme recommended by the Charity Commissioners, which, although of a comprehensive character, did not go as far as he himself wished. The Charity Commissioners proposed that the Hospital should be done away with; that the pensioners should be increased from twelve to twenty-four; that women as well as men should be admitted to the benefit of the charity; that this should be thrown open to all British subjects; and that restrictions upon the religion of the pensioners should be wholly done away with. They further proposed that the allowance of the students should be increased to £100 a year each; that these should not be obliged to belong to any particular College or Inn of Court; and, further, that the estate, consisting of 2,500 acres in Yorkshire, and possessing a considerable residential value, which non-residential trustees were incapable of fully developing, should be sold, and the proceeds invested in Consols. A Bill for carrying out the scheme of the Charity Commissioners had been brought in last Session by the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council; in doing so, howhe never told the House that he dis

ever,

approved of the provisions of that scheme, but referred the Bill embodying it to a Select Committee composed of five Mem

reactionary form, instead of leaving the
matter to be dealt with by a Government
measure, introduced with the concurrence
of the Charity Commissioners. In its pre-
sent shape he thought it was really impos-
sible to amend the Bill. It would be better
to throw it out, and to leave it in the
hands of the Government to bring in a
measure dealing in a wider spirit with
this charity. Here was an estate, pro-
ducing something like £5,000 a year,
which might be turned to very useful
purposes of an educational character, such
as had been pointed to by a noble Duke
(the Duke of Marlborough) in "another
place when he accounted for the delay
which had taken place in producing the
educational measures of the Government
by the hope which he had entertained of
getting hold of some of the waste foun-
dations of the country. He thought that
when there was such a cry for techni-
cal education this charity might be used
for that purpose. He believed that, in
Yorkshire, there was not at present a
single school for technical instruction. The
scheme of the Select Committee, as em-
bodied in the Bill of the hon. Gentleman,
was most illiberal; as he hoped the House
would not sanction it, he moved that the
Bill be read a second time that day six
months.

word "now," and at the end of the Ques
Amendment proposed, to leave out the
tion to add the words "upon this day six
months."-(Mr. Shaw-Lefevre.)

He

bers chosen from his own side of the House, and but two taken from the Oppo- VISCOUNT CRANBORNE said, the hon. sition Benches. Bearing in mind that the Gentleman had attempted to give this Bill Liberal party had a decided majority in a thoroughly party aspect, and had started the House, the preponderating influence some theories on the subject of endowment, ought to have been exactly reversed. The which were almost as novel to Members of Committee at once proceeded to cut out his own party as they were to those who all the liberal parts of the Bill, and so sat upon the Ministerial Benches. completely altered its character that no- really failed to gather what were those body could any longer recognize it. On "liberal provisions" which the Committee its return to the House he had endeavoured had so wickedly struck out. He found to restore it to its original condition, and that widows and daughters had given way gave notice of Amendments for that pur- to decayed and necessitated gentlemen, pose. The noble Lord endeavoured to and that the restriction to British subjects force the Bill through the House; but, had been omitted. Was it part of the creed in order to prevent its being discussed in a of the Liberal party that the widows and thin House, he (Mr. Lefevre) had stayed up orphans of pensioners should share in the night after night till three in the morning, endowments? Had the Liberal party any and eventually the Bill was dropped. But objection to "decayed and necessitous now, in the present Session, his hon. gentlemen?" He was also puzzled by Friend the Member for Cambridge, fresh from the honours of an Election, in which he had received considerable Liberal sup

the statements which he had heard as to the party composition of the Committee; for, as it happened, the two Liberal Mem

they were bound to respect and give effect to. He therefore should vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Reading, although unable to agree with him in all the views that he had expressed.

bers did not vote upon the same side. If hazardous proceeding, in a matter of this he were compelled to determine between nature, for private Members completely to the purity of water of the Liberalism of ignore the Commissioners, and take the disGentlemen opposite, he should say that the posal of the revenues into their own hands. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Dent) was, He hoped the Bill would pass, and that on the whole, more orthodox than the such Amendments, as to the wisdom of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Committee might seem fit, would be introCalne (Mr. Lowe). The principle now duced. Its broad features would, however, laid down by the hon. Member for Read- no doubt, remain as an embodiment of the ing (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) could not be nar-will of a deceased benefactor, whose views rowed to a particular case. If the intentions of a man who made his will with the full knowledge that there were members of the Church of England, Roman Catholics, and Dissenters, and who discriminated between them, were to be deliberately set at nought, why, in fairness to testators at the present day, these principles of action ought to be declared. At one of those three o'clock sittings which the hon. Member had alluded to he startled the House by the declaration that it was ridiculous for anybody to suppose that the testator could care for the Church of his baptism. That might, of course, be the hon. Member's own view of the case. But there were, nevertheless, large numbers of individuals who did attach importance to their religious belief, and were prepared to help more earnestly those who agreed with them in religious belief than those who did not; and if that were the place to quote Scripture, passages might be adduced in support of that view.

MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE begged the noble Lord's pardon. He had never used the words attributed to him on any occasion at three o'clock in the morning.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Well, then, it was at half-past one.

MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE said, he had never, at any time, made use of any such expression.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE certainly had understood the hon. Gentleman to say that he felt no individual preference for those who belonged to the same religious body as himself; but was glad to find that he had misconceived what was actually stated. The hon. Member, however, must admit that he had now advocated the conversion of this endowment to purposes of primary education-purposes which were wholly foreign to those which the testator had in view.

MR. POWELL said, he did not think that the present was the time in the history of the country when a desire to increase the comforts of old and decayed persons could be legitimately regarded as out of date. In Bradford there were collections going on in favour of various asylums devoted to the purpose. The question involved in the opposition to this Bill was, whether, when there was an endowment in favour of a religious communion, the members of that religious communion should be allowed to enjoy the property devised for their benefit. The issue at stake in this case did not affect one religion alone, but the endowments and bequests of all bodies of Christians in this country. He must adhere to the broad principle that a man 'could spend his money as he liked, and so leave it after his death. The Report of the Middle-class Schools Commission was in favour of this Bill, which, he trusted, would be read a second time. Any alterations which it was desirable to make in the details of the Bill could be effected in Committee, while its broad principles were preserved.

MR. THOMSON HANKEY thought the discussion showed the necessity there existed for some efficient representative of the Charity Commissioners in that House. There was at that moment no Member of the Government on the Benches opposite to say a word in favour of the Report of the Charity Commissioners, or to give any explanation with regard to the Bill. It would be more satisfactory if such measures as this were introduced by the Government, instead of being left to private Members. It could not, he thought, be MR. DENT had the authority of the said that the hon. Member for Reading Charity Commissioners for stating that (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) factiously opposed the they had never been consulted with regard Bill. What the hon. Member asked was, to the Bill that was now before the House; that action should not be taken in the and he certainly thought it a rash and matter until the Charity Commissioners