CURIOSITIES OF POSTHUMOUS CHARITY.


The curious observer, in his rambles about town, is occasionally
struck with some singular demonstrations for which he is at a loss to
account. Sometimes they assume a benevolent form, and sometimes they
have a holiday-making aspect, yet with a touch of the lugubrious. In
London, or in some one of the thriving towns lying within a score of
miles of it, he strolls into a church, where he sees a number of
loaves of bread piled up at the back of the communion-table, or
ranged, as they are in a baker's shop, upon shelves against the wall.
It is a pleasant sight, but apt to be somewhat puzzling. Perhaps he
saunters into a country church-yard, and there finds amongst the rank
grass and moss-grown and neglected memorials of the silent multitude,
one trim and well-tended monument, uninvaded by cryptogamia, free from
all stain of the weather, and the surrounding grassy sward neatly mown
and fenced in, it may be, with budding willow branches or a circle of
clipped box. Or he finds his way through a suburban village, blocked
up some fine morning by a crowd of poor women and girls, clustered
round the door of a retired tradesman or the curate of the place, from
which three or four at a time emerge with gratified looks, and go
about their business, while others enter in their turn. Such
demonstrations as these, and we might mention many others, have their
origin in certain charitable dispositions and bequests, many of which
are of considerable antiquity. There is one in operation to this day,
near Winchester, which dates from the time of William of Wykeham; by
virtue of which every traveller passing that way, if he choose to make
the demand, is regaled with a pint of beer and a meal of bread and