GENERAL HISTORY. 



[145 



or later, I am conrlnoed must be 

 adopted, for they will indicate 

 the kind of districts where parish 

 schools are most wanted. 



The more immediate subject, 

 however, of our consideration, ia 

 an inquiry into the state and 

 management of charitable funds ; 

 and I am persuaded that the 

 House will feel with me the neces- 

 sity of adopting it, when I state 

 a few particulars of the large 

 amount of those funds, and the 

 abuses to which they are liable. 

 Here the hon. member went 

 through a considerable number 

 of fraudulent practices of this 

 kind exhibited in different English 

 counties ; adding, that the labours 

 of the committee relate only to 

 charities connected with educa- 

 tion, and that they have received 

 no evidence regarding any other 

 abuses. He then took notice of 

 the returns under Mr. Gilbert's 

 act, which, said he, strange to 

 tell, has been wholly neglected 

 by parliament for above thirty 

 years ; and he then strengthened 

 his cause by quoting a case from 

 the late Lord Kenyon, in which 

 he spoke with great severity of 

 " empty walls without scholars, 

 and every thing neglected but the 

 receipt of the salaries and emolu- 

 ments.'* He then defended him- 

 self and his colleagues from the 

 clamours which had been raised 

 under the flimsy pretext of great 

 tenderness for the sacred rights 

 of private property ; and he as- 

 serted that a more gross abuse of 

 language was never committed by 

 ignorant or wilful perversion than 

 the statement that charitable 

 funds are of a private nature. 



The provisions exempting the 



sohook, were the oiily other pairt 

 of the details which required 

 observation. He said, that beside 

 the apprehension that a refusal 

 might have endangered the bill in 

 certain quarters, the reason which 

 influenced him in acceding to 

 the proposed exemption was, that 

 those great establishments arcj 

 placed conspicuously in the eyes 

 of the public, and may be ex- 

 amined by the ordinary proceed- 

 ings in Chancery, and by the 

 inquiries of this House. Speak- 

 ing of the former of these modes, 

 he employed the following lan- 

 guage. " If any one tells me 

 that the statute of charitable uses 

 affords a remedy, I answer, that 

 the grossest abuses being every 

 where notorious, the remedy has 

 only thrice been resorted to for 

 above half a century, and only 

 once within the last thirty years ; 

 and I bid him look at the fate of 

 that one attempt to obtain justice." 



The learned and hon. member 

 concluded with a peroration, in 

 which he pronounced a warm 

 eulogy on those humane indivi- 

 duals whose conduct he had so 

 long witnessed, and for whom he 

 felt much more than he was able 

 to describe. 



Lord Castlerragli, after com- 

 plimenting the author of a speech 

 so interesting and full of informa- 

 tion, fiient along 'with him in 

 several of his positions which were 

 calculated to draw the attention 

 of parliament to the management 

 of the funds for education. He 

 tlien suggested that men of rank 

 and consideration ought to hold a 

 certain proportion among the 

 members of the committee; per- 

 sons of great 9tation,who, although 



two universities aud tbe four great they should not go into the labo 

 Vol. LX. VIA nou 



nous 



