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(a general assistant to the provost) and bursars, who receive the rents of the college estates, and have charge of all muniments, deeds, leases, etc. From evidence given before the Clarendon Commission on Public Schools (1861-64), it appears that from time immemorial it had been the custom of the governing body, consisting of the provost and fellows, to levy fines on the granting and renewal of leases of lands vested in the college; and in that connection a beautiful and interesting arrangement had sprung up, by which this happy band of fellows divided among themselves the increased increment of these funds, or "beneficial leases" as they were called. Alone in the years 1842-62, from this source they had put into their pockets a trifle of £127,700, whereas William of Wykeham had stipulated that his fellows should be paid a stipend of £10 yearly for their sinecures !

O for a " dividing society" of this kind! Nay, think what a lot of jostling, hustling, backstairs intrigue, heartburnings, nepotism, and so forth must have entered into the competition for a fellowship in those happy Etonian groves of Academe in the good old Georgian and early Victorian days! Why, an impecunious member of the aristocracy, or a patrician, or nearly patrician scion with suitable ecclesiastical connections, securing such sinecure was pensioned for life; and from a college window, with calm serenity and unruffled brow, he might with equanimity watch the storms of life and the outer world pass by, knowing that whoever foundered, he, at any rate, had attained a peaceful haven without traversing any stormy sea!

Therefore, on an average, reckoning eight participants (the provost and seven fellows) over the twenty years, this sum would ensure to each a dividend of about £800. Of course, had the original beneficiaries, Henry VI.'s poor scholars "-Pauperes et Indigentes-still continued to receive education and maintenance at Eton (and after the Reformation one may look for them in vain) this increment from the "beneficial leases" would, or should,

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have been applied in their behalf. Be it also remembered that this specified amount of £127,700 represents only a comparatively small freshet of that diverted auriferous stream which, time out of mind, had poured into the pockets of provost and fellows. En passant, we may note that Dr. Richard Allestree, provost of Eton (166580), and a man of integrity, had had considerable difficulty in imposing even temporary restraint upon the peculations of the members of the governing body, who had enriched themselves at the expense of the general Etonian community; and Maxwell Lyte says that "in 1635 the scholars complain that they are robbed of breakfast, clothing, bedding, and the commonest necessities of life, while the college income is divided among a few." At the end of the eighteenth century we find the “ poor scholars" (not the indigent poor, by the way, rather the patrician poor) had to pay for extras, out of their friends' pockets, sums amounting to £80 at Eton, £60 at Winchester, and similar sums elsewhere.

Superadded to these "increment emoluments, a fellow derived a comfortable income from one of the forty ecclesiastical benefices in the gift of the college. In value these benefices were worth annually, twenty-one at from £100 to £200; fifteen from £300 to £500; and four from £600 to £1,200; these values being taken from statistics published in 1863, about which period the best of them were held by the governing body. The livings of lesser value were bestowed by them upon their relations and friends, so that the reader may be disposed to agree with us that the whole thing was quite a family affair. Truly, opportunities for nepotism were, as Dominie Sampson might say, "Prodeegious!

This levying of large fines on renewals of leases and reservations of scanty rents were, as Thorold Rogers has pointed out, not general before the last years of Henry VIII. The custom developed rapidly after the Act of 18 Elizabeth, which directed that one-third of the old

rents be reserved in corn. Fines, as we have said, represented the "unearned increment" on land, and corporations, during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were not acutely alive to any obligations towards their successors. At any rate, fines form a notable part of corporate incomes, though they are not always inserted in the accounts."

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As to this sense of "obligation," we learn from another source that the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, in the three years ending in 1854, divided £12,975 among themselves, while the rents and annual profits of the new Dotation from which this plunder was derived, were only £3,982 in the same period. The new Dotation, it may be said, were rectories and tithes conveyed to the Chapter by the Crown, in the reign of Edward VI., as a part equivalent for lands forcibly extorted from them by Henry VIII. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster likewise divided £38,407 in fines in 1861. On the other side of the shield we have the rare case of a University corporation-St. John's College, Cambridgewhich decreed, in 1627, that all such fines, "heretofore divided" by the governing body," should be disposed to the best advantage of the whole society."

But if one were not politically or socially powerful, one might find that such "dividends entailed serious consequences, as in the case of a headmaster of Archbishop Whitgift's foundation of Holy Trinity, at Croydon, who was "sacked " for pocketing fines about the year 1815.

The system of fines on renewal of leases of Eton College property did not disappear until after 1873, though the Public Schools Act of 1868 laid it down that the governing body was to submit to special commissioners, and, if approved by them, lay before the Privy Council a scheme to let the college lands at their full or "rack rent." The working of the scheme was to be supervised by a Government department, or persons appointed by a department of Government, as may seem good to the special commissioners."

Later the new Etonian governing body made a scheme under the "Eton College Property Act, Public Schools Act of 1873," whereby it was laid down that: "No fine shall be taken on the renewal or grant of any lease of any part of the college estates."

CHAPTER VI

ETON COLLEGE (continued)

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE AND THE BRITISH LION-RICH LOOTNUMEROUS BROKEN STATUtes-LazineSS AND ETON SYNONYMOUS— THE CLASS OF "POOR" SCHOLARS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY'SLOPPY SENTIMENTALISM AND AN EPISODE-Revolting SavaGERY -A WORK OF THE OLD ARTIST-REWARD FOR UPHOLDING DEAD MAN'S WILL.

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BY 1834 the noose had commenced slightly to constrict the throats of the provost and fellows of Eton; they were violating both letter and spirit of the statutes, and the British lion-who is by no means particularly rampant where corruption, long-standing malversation, or alienation of indigent rights are concerned-could not, cannot stand violation of the letter, however it may be with the spirit. One may, almost with fair impunity, violate the latter while nominally adhering to the former, and he will merely regard one with a lazy flicker of the eyelids. But let there be an infringement of the hallowed letter, and after a century or so what magnificently virtuous roarings fill the land!

The proceeds of fines and land-tax were, by Henry's ordinances, to have been applied ad communem utilatem (to the common profit), instead of which the provost and fellows pocketed the lot. These worthies' statutory allowances were in all to have been £200 per annum, instead they received nearly £7,000 yearly. The scholars were to have been furnished with dress and bedding quae ad vestium ct lectisternia eorundem, aliaque iis necessaria pertinet" (food, clothing, and whatever is needful for them); whereas, save for a coarse gown, the scholars received nothing for dress from the college funds.

In the early years of the nineteenth century a certain proportion of the collegers was composed of Windsor or Eton doctors', solicitors,' and successful tradesmen's sons, the children of Eton masters, or of impoverished country squires. And even these merely nominally poor and indigent, and not the sons of travailing Demos, were made subtly to feel that they were not the equals of the sons of gentlemen (the Oppidans), and, accordingly, were subjected to petty humiliations, the more to accentuate the want of "birth distinction." No more then than now in the twentieth century did it strike the Eton authorities that a young aristocrat or plutocrat "in a serge gown was an anomaly not contemplated by the statute of the royal founder."

Another Etonian episode of a "more robust age ❞—as those style it who gird at what they manfully describe as the sloppy "sentimentalism of the humanitarian cranks" of a sickly era-centres in a memorable fight in the early years of last century, between a small boy, Ashley Cooper, and a big fellow, afterwards Sir A. Wood. For three hours the unequal fistic combat raged, no attempt being made by the bystanders to intervene till one boy fell senseless, was carried to his tutor's house, dosed with a pint of brandy (by his eldest brother), had gloves put upon his hands to conceal their frightful condition, and expired the same night. Every effort was made to conceal the matter and none to summon medical assistance. The sequel was a trial of Wood at Aylesbury, before Justice Gazelees, for manslaughter, the defendant being acquitted on the ground that this fight (by mere boys!) had been conducted in strict accordance with the rules of the "Prize Ring," then still in force.

Allowances for breakfast, dinner, and supper, with the use* of certain fisheries, had been granted the foundation

* A propos of these "Severn salmon " fishery rights, it may be noted that, at Goldcliff, near Newport, Mon., may still be seen a row of poles, put there in March, 1442, by order of Henry VI. These preserved the fishing rights and also provided a revenue-for the Church of the