The interest payable on the bond amounts to £29 8s. per annum, which is received regularly by the trustees of the Old Meeting, and is laid out by them in the purchase of quartern loaves, which are distributed at the meeting-house every Sabbath day, from May to October, among such poor persons of the congregation as the trustees select.
Dressing a Grave with Flowers
William Benson Earle, Esq., of Grateley, Hampshire, England, who died in 1796, gave three hundred guineas to the rector, churchwardens, and overseers of Grateley, in trust, to invest the same in their joint names, and expend half the interest thereof at Christmas, and the other half at Easter, in the purchase of the best ox-beef and cheese, together with potatoes or peas, or both, to be distributed in just proportions, at their discretion, among the poorest families in that parish, but nowhere else. And he requested that one guinea of the annual interest should be given yearly to the clerk of the parish, so long as he should cleanse and repair with flowers in the different seasons, as had before been done, the bed over the remains of Dame Joanna Elton, in the churchyard of Grateley.
Bread for the Poor
The Rev. Mr. Pitt, an English clergyman, directed sixty penny loaves to be given to the poor of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, yearly, on Whit Sunday, by eight o’clock in the morning, upon his tomb, in the burying-ground, in Old Bethlem.
Bluecoat Boys and Packets of Raisins
In accordance with the will of Peter Symonds, dated 1586, sixty of the younger boys of Christ’s Hospital, London, attend divine service at the Church of Allhallows, Lombard-street, on Good Friday, and are presented each with a new penny, a bun, and a packet of raisins.
A Fixed Price for Corn and Wine
A citizen of Berne, Switzerland, left this unusual will:
“Being anxious for my fellow-citizens of Berne (who have often suffered by dearth of corn and wine), my Will is that, by the permission of Providence, they shall never for the future suffer again under the like calamity, to which end and purpose I give my estate, real and personal, to the Senate of Berne, in trust for the people; that is to say, that they receive the produce of my estate till it shall come to the sum of (suppose two thousand pounds); that then they shall lay out the two thousand pounds in building a town house, according to a plan by me left; the lower story whereof to consist of large vaults or repositories for wine; the story above I direct to be formed into a piazza, for such persons as shall come to the market at Berne for disposing of their goods free from the injuries of the weather; above that I direct a council chamber to be erected for a committee of the Senate to meet in from time to time to adjust my accounts, and to direct such things as may be necessary for the charity; and above the council chamber as many floors for granaries as can be conveniently raised, to deposit a quantity of corn for the use of the people whenever they shall have occasion for it. And when this building shall be erected, and the expense of it discharged, I direct the Senate of Berne to receive the produce of my estate till the same shall amount to the sum (suppose of two thousand pounds); and when the price of corn shall be under the mean rate of the last ten years, one fourth part, they shall then lay out one thousand pounds in corn, and stow it in my granaries, and the same in wine, when under one fourth of the mean rate of the last ten years; and my Will is that none of the said corn or wine shall be sold until the price of corn and wine shall exceed at the common market one fourth of the mean rate for the last ten years; and then every citizen of Berne shall demand daily (and proportionally weekly) as many pounds of wheat and as many pints of wine as he has mouths in his family to consume, and no more, and that for the same he pay ready money after the mean rate that it has been at for the last ten years past, a due proportion being allowed for waste, and that to be settled by the Senate; and that each householder shall be so supplied as long as the price of corn and wine shall continue above the rate of one fourth more than the mean rate; and whatsoever increase shall be made of the capital, it shall be laid out under the same restrictions, in adding to the stock of corn and wine; which, under the blessing of God, will, I hope, in a certain time reduce these two necessary articles of life to very near a fixed price, to the glory of God and the benefit of the poor.”