more than justified by its charming irony and no less valuable criticism. Thackeray, himself a Carthusian, makes Colonel Newcome's son a scholar at the old Charterhouse (vide Pendennis and The Newcomes), and it will be recalled that by the intervention of an archbishop, one of the trustees, the son of Rawdon Crawley and Rebecca (or "Becky") Sharp was received on the foundation (vide Vanity Fair).

In 1845 the brotherhood of " poor" Carthusian pensioners mainly consisted of Wellington's old Peninsular officers, who, eighty in number, received £36 a year, rooms rent free, and, when in bounds, wore a long black cloak. Compelled to be in at eleven each night, they were fined Is. for each non-attendance at chapel. The bell rang at 8 or 9 p.m. eighty strokes, but when one of the brethren died one stroke the less was given. Poor old Colonel Newcome (Thackeray's The Newcomes) stood, fictionally, with the Order of the Bath on his breast, among the nominally "poor brethren" at chapel; and later we have from him the immortal, "peculiar sweet" "Adsum" purple passage.

When the Clarendon Public Schools Commission visited Charter-house, in 1862, they heard the same familiar perversions of the meaning of the term " poor and needy scholar" as were served up to Brougham's Select Committee of Enquiry by Dr. Goodall, Provost of Eton College, in 1818.

..

A venerable ass, one the Ven. Archdeacon W. H. Hale, then master of the Charter-house, shaking his hoary head, mumbled to the Commissioners: "I am a very oldfashioned person, and I should be very sorry to destroy what is termed the casual favour of great men. The foundation is filled with such a nice set of boys." The idea of competitive examination for Foundationers frightened the archdeacon." Many years ago," he told Lord Devon, one of the Commissioners, " being connected with Christ's Hospital, I came to the conclusion that

poor did not mean humble in rank, or the being destitute, but that it meant rather the non-possession of property. Besides this, the providing of benefices under the charter, to which the scholars should be preferred before all others, seems to indicate their being the children of persons whom we should now call gentry."

The Rev. A. P. Sanders, another Carthusian official, assured the Commissioners that "a medical man with a very large income, who can pay very little attention to his son's education, is just the person who wants" a free scholarship at the Charter-house. "Dr. Russell, a previous headmaster, used to say that they were not to be millionaires. Do not let us have sons of men who are palpably rich men, but all others will be glad to come. I am quite sure of this. The sons of professional men enjoying for a time a large income are very often those who most need that assistance.”

The registrar of Charter-house (Archibald Keightley) admitted to Lord Lyttelton, a Commissioner, that no printed, but only written, statutes for the government of the Charter-house were in existence, and even these were in such a state of confusion" that it required a considerable degree of knowledge to know the state of legislation.' The so-called statutes of 1627 were revocable; they were no guide as to what was or was not in force; and only the "Charter," which another witness said meant the letters patent granted by James I., was irrevocable.

"

It appears that no part of the property originally granted to the governors of the hospital of Charter-house is held in trust especially for the school, but the hospital for poor men and the school for "poor" scholars are supported by a common fund. The property so held in trust consists of houses and buildings in London and Hackney; farms in various counties; tithe rents, manorial profits, and quit rents, timber, interest of money -principally in the hands of the Accountant-General and of the trustees for charitable funds-and interest

on funds held on special trusts for the benefit of the school.

About 1875 the annual income was about £23,000, out of which £8,000 represented the annual expenditure on the school. The charter ordains that surplus revenues arising in one year shall be employed in the same way, for the same objects; and, accordingly, about the date mentioned above, the governing body increased the payment to each poor brother from £26 10s. to £36, and augmented the number of scholars. Thus, it would appear that this large revenue is continually increasing. The governors have in Cambridgeshire, Essex, and Lincolnshire, the patronage of ten lucrative ecclesiastical benefices, the incumbents of which have always been scholars formerly on the foundation. In value the livings ranged, in 1865, from £1,100, £700, and £630, to £220 and £180 yearly.

According to the so-called statutes of 1627, apprentices were to have £16 a year towards "setting out, whereof 4 marks shall be to apparel the apprentice, and 20 marks to his master . . . providing always that the tradesman shall first enter into £30 bond to the governors, for good usage of the apprentice, teaching him his trade." In 1843 this donation was increased to £100, and by later order in 1854, if the apprentice was bound without remuneration, or not articled, this £100 was paid to him. It should here be stated that the declared Charter or letters patent of the ninth year of James I., by which the Charter-house was governed, or stated to be governed prior to the Clarendon Commission and the Public Schools Acts of 1868, gave no power or authority to make donations for apprenticeships or exhibitions.

"But although this language seems to imply that such scholars were potential artisans or tradesmen, it is to be noted that this donation of £100 has always been given to scholars where some immediate expense is incurred, such as an outfit for the army or navy, or East India

Company's service, or upon their being articled to any trade or business "-thus Inspector Skirrow, in his Report to the Charity Commission, December 30th, 1854.

By the statutes of 1627, the master of the hospital, who is an ex-officio governor and who resides within the walls of the institution, is "to have the economical government of the house and household during the governors' pleasure," "but it does not seem that his functions and powers with respect to the school have ever been distinctly defined or are clearly understood," say the Clarendon Commissioners. His original emoluments consisted of lodging and diet and £50 per annum. His stipend was £800 (1865), and he has a house rent free and certain other perquisites. The statutory masters to whom the care and instruction of the foundation scholars were committed were the schoolmaster and the usher. The stipend of the former was £30, with lodging, food, and fuel; that of the latter £15, with lodging and board.

At present the headmaster's emoluments appear to amount to £1,260 per annum; that of the usher, £800. Charter-house School contained three classes of boys, viz., foundation scholars, boarders, and day-boys. The original poor scholars have long departed from us, in the view of their eminences, the governing bodies of this and other public schools, of course; but the foundationers, their usurpers, are, or were, chosen by the governors, who exercise the right in rotation. This institution is now under the direction of the King, fifteen governors, and the master himself, whose salary from the foundation is stated to be £800 per annum. There are now, it seems, sixty of these scholars, in comparison with the original forty prescribed by the founder's statutes. They are in effect entitled to free board, lodging, medical attendance, education and clothes, but have to pay from £53 10s. to £73 10s. yearly. But they are not now distinguished by wearing a special dress, or by forming a separate house. By examination at the age of eighteen they receive, if

passed, an exhibition of £80 a year at Oxford or Cambridge, and £20 extra for four years on graduating B.A., and one of the nice ecclesiastical livings mentioned above. They are charged merely with the cost of books and stationery. Surely, all of us wish we were "poor" men of this type-poverty, for once, an alluring possession !

Picturesque figures in black, the pensioners still occupy their old home of mellowed red brick, with its fine dininghall, panelled chapel with founder's tomb, old library, magnificent staircase, and ornate ceiling and tapestried walls. According to Sir H. Burdett's Digest of Charities, Charter-house provides a home and maintenance for fiftyfive decayed gentlemen, who are nominated by the governors in turn. Nominees must be bachelors or widowers, Anglican communicants, British subjects, and not under sixty years. The blind, helpless, or imbecile are ineligible.

The Poor Brethren have now each an apartment, attendance from domestics, ample and plain diet, and an allowance of £36 per annum for clothes, etc., together with four weeks' holiday every autumn. They must previously have been householders. There is a separate governing body for the hospital.

The Charity Commission Report on Charter-house for 1854* shows that of the " 20 poor scholars" nominated by the Queen, the Prince Consort, and Prince of Wales, the master of the hospital, and a number of dukes, earls, lords, and the Bishop of London, were the sons of a rector, a major, a rear-admiral, a “gentleman," a Great Western Railway secretary, a barrister, a solicitor, and a naval captain's widow. This state of affairs was identical with that existing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

"I should presume," said the Rev. R. Elwyn to the Commissioners on January 18th, 1862, “that the charter contemplated a different class from that which we have; * Skirrow's Report.