OLD ENGLISH CHARITIES.
The local charities connected with the family history of great landowners in England form one of the most interesting classes of public relief. They date chiefly from ante-Reformation times, and often embody a hidden symbolism into which none save the antiquary now cares to inquire. It is a mistake to suppose that all the dying bequests of pious folk in the Middle Ages were devoted to the "Church" proper: the larger part certainly were, although the spirit that prompted even the making of such bequests was symbolical of the belief in the dispensing (rather than the appropriating) powers of churchmen: but many were also the sums left to be yearly spent in the relief of the poor and starving. Thus originated the alms-(or bede-) houses so frequently met with in the retired villages of England. Bede (from the German beten, to "pray") meant prayer, hinting at the pious duty of those benefiting by the founder's legacy to pray for his eternal welfare. When the Reformation, among many abuses, also obliterated many beautiful and poetical customs, the meaning of these "houses of prayer" was forgotten, and their chapels were often ruthlessly whitewashed. The material part of the foundation, however, still remained, and the bedesmen, twelve or thirteen (in commemoration of the number of the apostles, or the apostles and their Master), continued to be chosen by the clergyman of the parish and the lord of the manor. In other places, instead of this more costly mode of relief, a custom prevailed of distributing a "dole" at stated times to a large number of poor people, the number corresponding to the age of the giver: if alive, of course the number increased every year; if dead, it was fixed at the age at which he or she had died. Many of these local customs continue to this day: some have even been instituted lately, since the revived taste for medievalism has beautified and refined English homesteads and village churches. The queen, a faithful upholder of ancient national manners, has given the example by adhering to the time-honored custom called the Royal Maundy. This word is from mandatum, or commandment, and refers to the "new commandment" given by Christ to his apostles at the Last Supper. In Catholic countries it is still the custom for the sovereign to wash the feet of twelve poor men (his wife performing the same office for twelve poor and aged women) in public on the Thursday before Easter, and to serve them at table afterward: in Vienna this is done in a very solemn and public manner. The chosen ones are brought to the palace in court-coaches, and after the ceremony is over are carried home in the same way, loaded with presents of clothing, money, and all the dishes, spoons, forks, etc., used at their dinner. In England the same charity, or its equivalent, is dispensed, not by the sovereign in person, but by her chaplains and almoners, in the midst of beautiful formalities. The dignity with which the ceremony is performed is a striking evidence of the national character, and a contrast to the sometimes slovenly manner in which great public religious functions are got through abroad. The charities are distributed in the chapel of Whitehall, the palace made tragically famous by the disgrace of Wolsey and the death of King Charles I. Fifty-five old men, and as many women, the number corresponding to the age of the sovereign, were thus relieved last year. On an earlier occasion witnessed by the writer a procession consisting of a detachment of the yeomen of the guard, under the command of a sergeant-major (one of the yeomen carrying the royal alms on a gold salver of the reign of William and Mary), several chaplains, almoners, secretaries and a few national schoolchildren (allowed to take part in the ceremony as a signal reward for good behavior), left the Royal Almonry Office for the chapel of Whitehall. It was met at the door by the lord high almoner and the subdeans of the Chapel Royal, who joined the ranks and passed up to the altar. The surpliced boys of the Chapel Royal, and the clergy and gentlemen belonging officially to it, took their appointed places right and left, and the gold salver was deposited in front of the royal pew, generally tenanted by one or more members of the royal family. Evening prayer, slightly varied and adapted for the occasion, as custom has decreed for several centuries, was then gone through; the forty-first Psalm was chanted; and after the First Lesson an anthem by Goss was sung. Then followed the distribution of £1 15s. to each woman, and a pair of shoes and stockings to each man. The two next anthems were by Mendelssohn, and in the intervals woolen and linen clothes were first distributed to each man, and money-purses to each man and woman. The Second Lesson was then read, and the fourth and concluding anthem, by Greene, chanted, after which the usual Thanksgiving and Prayer of St. Chrysostom were read. The musical part of the service, being especially prominent, was correctly and artistically performed by skillful musicians (some of them composers), styled officially "gentlemen of the Chapel Royal:" the solo in the first anthem was sung by one of the boys.
In addition to this special ceremony, other Easter bounties, styled "Minor Bounty," "Discretionary Bounty," and the "Royal Gate Alms," were, according to old custom, distributed at the Almonry Office on Good Friday and Saturday, while Easter Monday and Tuesday were devoted to the distribution of other supplementary relief to old and infirm people previously chosen by the clergy of the various London parishes. The recipients included over a thousand persons.
Among the private local charities none is on so large a scale as the famous "Tichborne Dole." The idea we now attach to the word dole is ludicrously inappropriate in this case, where the gift is in the proportion of one gallon of the best wheaten flour to each adult and half a gallon to each child, and where the number of the recipients is generally between five and six hundred, including the inhabitants of two parishes. This custom is seven hundred years old, and was first instituted on the Tichborne estate by Dame Mabel, the wife of Sir Roger de Tichborne, knight, in the beginning of the twelfth century. The foundress was renowned for her piety and charity, and by her own people was looked upon as a saint. The family record says that she was so charitable to the poor that, not content to exercise that virtue all her lifetime, she instituted the "dole" as a perpetual memorial of her goodness, and entailed it to her posterity. It is distributed yearly on the 25th of March. A large oil-painting, now hanging in the dining-room of Tichborne House, and representing the distribution of the "dole," was painted in 1670, and is considered as one of the most valuable family relics. The costumes of the period are faithfully represented, most of the prominent figures are portraits, and the scene is laid within the courtyard of the old manor, with its sculptured gables and picturesque mullioned windows. The present house, roomy and comfortable as it is, is a plain, unpretending building, with no architectural features to recommend it, but the park and grounds are very beautiful, the old trees disposed in deep glades and avenues, and the situation altogether very picturesque. Since the famous trial has made everything bearing the name of Tichborne a target for curiosity, the occupants have been sadly annoyed, and access to the house was at last, in self-defence, denied to strangers who came simply as gaping sight-seers. The "dole" distribution, as we have said, takes place every year. Last spring it was attended with less show than usual, owing to the illness of the little boy who now represents the old name (the nephew of the lost Roger Tichborne), in consequence of which none of the ladies of the family were present. But despite the absence of the festal arrangements by which it is usually accompanied, the main business was the same as it has always been since Dame Mabel's time. About nine o'clock the fine old park became thronged with men, women and children, all carrying bags and baskets in which to stow away the "bounty." The distribution was made at the back of the house. The people gathered in groups, dressed in all sorts of plain, dilapidated country garments—old men in worn-out smock-frocks (a sight seldom seen even in conservative England), gaiters such as they wear at work in the fields, and slouched, unrecognizable hats that had evidently seen better times; others stood in their "Sunday clothes," stiff and uncomfortable as a laborer looks in that unusual and unartistic guise; some were old and toothless, yet upright and almost martial-looking; while some, again, had that pathetic look—sunken eyes, bent limbs and general air of having given in to the attacks of time and sorrow—which invariably speaks the same language and stirs the same sympathy all over the world. The women were in the majority, most of them hale and hearty, the wives and daughters of laborers who were too busy to come in person. Nine sacks, each containing fifty gallons of flour, were emptied by two sturdy miller's men into an immense tub. The family being an old Roman Catholic one, a religious ceremony was the prelude of the distribution. The domestic chaplain offered up a short prayer, and after invoking the blessing of Heaven on the gift, sprinkled the flour with holy water in the form of a cross. It was no uncommon thing for one person to carry away three or four gallons of flour: the largest award was in the case of a family consisting of man, wife and seven children, the wife carrying away with her five and a half gallons. Many of those whose names appeared as witnesses for the defence during the memorable trial were present—John Etheridge, the blacksmith, and Kennett, coachman to the dowager Lady Tichborne, among the number. The latter lives in a small freehold cottage, his own property, at Cheriton, the next parish to Tichborne. Persons of all denominations were relieved—Church people, Dissenters and Roman Catholics alike—without the slightest favoritism being shown to any.
The same kind of charity, though on a smaller scale, and by the custom of living patrons instead of the will of deceased ones, is dispensed at various times in the year through the whole country by both large and small landed proprietors.
The 11th of November (St. Martin's Day) is the one generally chosen for the distribution of winter clothing to the poor of the parish, and this in commemoration of the mediaeval legend of the holy Bishop Martin, who gave half his ample cloak to a shivering leper who begged of him in the street. Next night, says the legend, he saw in a dream Christ himself clothed in that cloak, and remembered the promise that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, ye have done it unto Me." The writer has often assisted at such distribution of warm clothing, both made and unmade. In every county squire's house there is a bi-or tri-weekly distribution of soup to the village poor, and in most two or three sets of fine bed-linen and soft baby-clothes, to be lent out on occasions requiring greater comforts than the poor and too often thriftless women of agricultural villages can afford. Private charity is all-reaching: the "hall" is the dispensary and the general ark of refuge for all county ills, moral, physical and pecuniary, and its help is never thought degrading, like that of the "parish." Most families pay a doctor and a nurse by the year to attend the poor free of expense, and an order from the doctor for jellies, soup or wine, as well as for the ordinary sorts of medicine, is always sure of being filled from the ample stores of the "housekeeper's room." If the city poor were half as well provided for as are the agricultural poor by their "lords of the manor," there would be far less destitution. Some affect to sneer at a system which savors of what they call "feudalism," and which, they wisely suggest, encourages pauperism, but warm-hearted and charitable people will probably disagree with these searchers after new methods, and will be glad to find in the ready sympathy of English landowners for their poor neighbors a ray of the old-fashioned unquestioning charity which distinguished biblical times.
B.M.