"Dear Sir:
"Your son is not at all compelled to join our society. The subscription of five shillings was decided upon simply to keep our meetings select."
The Englishman has a supreme contempt for what is cheap. It is in his nature. He cannot understand that there is any value in what he has not to pay for.
I cannot forget the time when a young lunatic hanged himself at Christ's Hospital, and the plethora of letters that were sent to the papers by parents who seemed to be anxious to seize the opportunity of trying to bring discredit on that splendidly conducted school, one of the most interesting philanthropic institutions in England.
A father, sheltering himself behind a pseudonym, went the length of writing to the Daily News to say that he had had three sons educated at Christ's Hospital, but that he thanked God he had not any more to send there.
The Governors of Christ's Hospital spend £60 a year upon each blue-coat boy. The three sons of this "indignant" father therefore cost the Hospital something like £2,000.
What respect this man would have felt for the school if the money had been drawn out of his own pocket in the shape of capitation fees!
The following conversation once took place between a lady and the head master of a great public school: