Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/252

 In 1513 the mercers held a hundred and sixty acres of trust-land, located chiefly in Marylebone and Westminster (Bradbury's trust). They now retain eight and a half acres; and no man can or will tell what they have done with the rest of the estate. The eight and a half acres yield a rental of a hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and seventy-five dollars; and the trustees make a return to the Charity Commissioners of a fixed "annual payment of £1 10s. per annum to St. Stephen, Coleman Street." Having done this, they feel they have discharged their duty towards the "pious founder" and the public, and pocket the little balance for the trouble they have taken. In New York certain malefactors connected with the municipality, who in a similar manner sought to convert public trusts to private uses, speedily found their way to jail amid a hurricane of popular execration. If they had been in "famous London town," they would have been central figures at the Lord Mayor's show, clothed, not in sackcloth and ashes, but in purple and fine linen, the observed of all observers. Mr. Beal holds, and I heartily agree with him, that these nefarious city jobbers must be compelled to disgorge at least half their revenues for metropolitan education, or justice will remain a laughing-stock. Mr. Beal, almost single-handed, has carried dismay into their camp. The Grocers' Company has given a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to the London Hospital, and the guilds are organizing a technical college to cost a hundred thousand dollars per annum. But these are not tokens of genuine repentance. They are mere dissembling peace-offerings to be set aside by the public with contempt.

The existence of so many anomalies and gigantic