508 Public Charities. [MAY, 



debtors, forty shillings each, as far as the rents would go. The good man 

 desired the master, or wardens, to be present in the discharge, and pay no 

 prison fees, nor chamber-rents ; and take twenty shillings for their trouble. 

 This little charity has been shamefully and most unfeelingly mismanaged. 

 The income now amounts to 101 /. that is, 7 1/, from the rents, and 30/. 

 from dividends of invested balances, and these balances arising, of course, 

 from the company neglecting their trust. From 1807 to 1810, nothing 

 whatever was paid; and from J8J5 to 1819 only 4/. ; aad all the while 

 tho prisons swarming with debtors. If the company be too idle, or too 

 callous to attend to the miseries of these wretched persons, let them an- 

 nually pay over this 101 /. to that admirable little society, instituted for 

 the very purpose to which these funds are destined and which has, in 

 the course of about half a century, redeemed 40,000 debtors. When the 

 company do redeem debtors, neither master nor warden attend, according 

 to the desire of the founder ; but each which surely the letter of instruction 

 does not warrant, takes the twenty shillings that is four pounds from the 

 charity. 



MORLEY'S CHARITY. A house, known by the sign of the Angel and 

 Crown, near Newbury, in Berkshire, the rent of which was to be dis- 

 tributed among four poor men above sixty years, to be chosen by the com- 

 pany, apparently without restriction. The rent under the present lease 40/. 

 Two of the persons at present benefited are members of the company. 



HORSHAM FREK SCHOOL, 1532. Founded by Richard Collier., for the 

 free instruction of sixty scholars belonging to the poor of the parish. A 

 house called the Key -the site is not now known with appurtenances in 

 Cheapside, in the parish of St. Pancras, in tho ward of Cheap, was left to 

 the company, from the rent of which they are to pay to the master 10/., 

 and to the usher ten marks, take one pound for themselves, and the rest 

 is to go towards the repair of the high roads round Horsham. This 

 property became confounded with other estates belonging to the com- 

 pany ; but, in 1596, was calculated at four-fifths of the property thus com- 

 mingled. That property now produces 515/., and will give 412/. for the 

 ' Key.' The salaries of the master and usher ' remain unaltered ;' but 

 gratuities are added, and, of course, the salaries may as well be said 

 at once plainly to be augmented. The average surplus for the last years 

 has been 51. Does this 51. go to the Horsham highways ? 



PETER BLUNDELL'S GIFT. One hundred and fifty pounds, on condition 

 the company, with part of the sum, purchase lands, and pay forty shillings 

 to Bethlehem Hospital. With this sum, and a legacy of 200/. by the 

 same person, they bought the house at the corner of St. Swithin's Alley, 

 now called the Turkey Coffee-house (or John's Coffee-house) and three 

 shops adjoining. What is the rent, and why are we not informed of its 

 amount ? It must, in such a position, be considerable ; but the company 

 still scrupulously obey to the letter the donor's direction, and pay just forty 

 shillings to the hospital ! 



So much for the landed revenues of the Mercers' Company, amounting 

 to 14,58 1/, per annum, exclusive of church patronage; but the real pro- 

 perty known and unknown, is probably nothing short of 20,000/. the 

 real property we mean, for which they are trustees for charitable purposes. 

 With the property, which is strictly their's as a society, we have nothing to 

 do: for instance, the Irish estates, which they hold in common with other 

 companies, though we do not exactly know on what conditions the grant 

 of those estates was made. But the landed estates, which we have been 



