charitable trusts. This cheap method was
thus described by a Lord Chancellor to the
House of Lords: "A petition is presented to
the Lord Chancellor; it is served on the
opposite party, whose conduct is called in
question; it comes on, on the appointed day;
there is an array of two or three counsel on
one side, and two or three counsel on the
other. It is argued, perhaps, one, two, three
and four successive days. Questions arise
which have to be referred to the master; it
goes into the master's office; litigation there
continues; the master makes his report; the
report is returned to the Chancellor;
exceptions, perhaps, or objections, are made to
the report; possibly the report is confirmed,
possibly it is referred back to the master;
and, after all, when the final order of the
Chancellor is made, it is subject to appeal to
your lordships' House."

Evidently this improved mode of proceeding,
thus described by Lord Lyndhurst,
however decided an advance upon previous
routine, however comparatively economical,
was still murder to little charitable trusts;
and great was the number of the little ones,
there being five-and-twenty thousand of them,
whereof not one was of more value than
fifty pounds a-year.

This being the state of affairs, Lord
Brougham began, in the year eighteen
hundred and eighteen, those efforts at reform
which have been maintained as efforts, and
but little more, from that time to the present,
by the British legislature, at a cost to the
nation, for talk, writing, and investigation
upon this topic alone, of nearly a quarter of
a million of money. Lord Brougham began
his labours to procure cheap and available
help to the due administration of small
trusts, by asking for a commission to inquire
into, and make completely known, the
extravagant nature and the serious extent of the
existing difficulty. The commissioners upon
charitable bequests were then appointed, and
worked year by year till they had filled with
disclosures of the evil to be remedied, thirty-eight
huge folio volumes, containing upwards
of twenty-eight thousand pages. It was
always imagined that this amount of reporting
would be followed by some legislative
measure. There was no hope for any bill unless
it came directly from the government; and,
seven years after the thirty-eighth volume of
reports had appeared, government being
pressed, promised to bring in a measure—
next session.

Accordingly, in the succeeding year, Lord
Lyndhurst, being at that time—twelve years
ago—Lord Chancellor, a bill was introduced
by government, at what our lawgivers call
"that late period of the session " when bills,
as they come in, leave their hope behind.
The Bishop of London entreated the Lord
Chancellor not to pass his bill through the
committee during the present session; many
of the bishops were out of town, and "no
measure," said his Grace, "affecting the
Church, or the interests of education as
connected with the Church, ought to be passed
at a period of the session when they were
unavoidably absent." The Lord Chancellor
replied that "Some such measure had been
recommended eight or ten years ago by the
commissioners of inquiry into charitable
bequests, but nothing successful had been
done as yet with respect to it." He stated,
however, that it was not his intention to
proceed with the bill.

Earlier next year—eleven years ago—Lord
Lyndhurst renewed his attempt to establish
a tribunal that would administer justice in
the case of all those small charities which can
only be crushed by the machinery of
Chancery. The measure was referred to a select
committee of the Lords, amended, and—only
NOT in due time—passed. It was too late to
get through the delays of the Commons also,
and thus, "in consequence of the late period,
&c."—we all very well know the phrase—it
came to an end with the session.

Next year—ten years ago—Lord
Lyndhurst brought the proposed measure before
the Lords in their own chosen shape, precisely
what they had in the previous session settled
that it ought to be. The legislative body
being composed still of precisely the same
men, they had only to send their bill on to
the Commons speedily. But they had changed
their minds. By that time, vested interests
had shaken off their slumbers, and there
were worshipful companies at work in getting
up a cry and a good opposition. "In
consequence," said Lord Lyndhurst, when he
moved the second reading, "in consequence
of an extensive combination throughout the
country against the bill, I cannot but feel that
a strong impression against it has been
created in the minds of your lordships." Its
purpose, be it remembered, was simply to
provide—in the form of a commission of men
competent to decide—a cheap tribunal for
the settlement of disputes and other questions
relative to the management of small trust
funds. The opposition was most active from
eleven of the nineteen city companies, against
which eleven companies, as it appeared,
nineteen informations had been filed in
consequence of the report made by the charity
commissioners of their mismanagement of
funds. Thus, of a charity founded of old at
Greenwich by an Earl of Northampton, to
support twenty poor persons and a warden,
and placed under the visitation of the
Mercers' Company, which was to send down
twelve visitors every Trinity Monday, at a
cost for boat-hire and dinner of not more than
five pounds, Lord Lyndhurst showed, by
way of specimen, how much was eaten upon
visitation day. The twelve visitors became
eighteen, and this is a list—apart from the
six carriages and pair, flowers, and so forth—
a list of the things actually put, as an annual
treat, into the stomachs of these members of