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in this view, the erection of a monument within a church or chapel has in several cases been regarded by the Courts as a "charitable " purpose.1

4. THE ADVANCEMENT OF OBJECTS OF GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITY. This probably is the heading under which it will be found most strikingly manifested how widely the legal technical sense of the term Charity differs from its ordinary popular acceptation.

The following purposes, all of which have been judicially recognised as "charitable," may be taken as presenting a sufficiently clear general outline of this fourth and last. section into which the subject of charity in the legal sense has been divided. From their enumeration it will be seen that in such cases as the following the promotion of the general good of a public community is of itself sufficient to constitute a legal "charity":-

"To buy and maintain a life-boat for the town of N."; "to supply the town of N. with spring water"; "to keep up a public garden"; "to pay part of the taxes levied on the town of N. ;""to pay part of the national debt."

So also grants of lands and revenues vested in the Corporation of a town for various public uses and purposes, such as the paving, lighting, cleansing, and improvement of the town, the erection of water-works, the repair of public bridges, roads and highways, are clearly "charitable" in the legal sense, within the Statute of Elizabeth,3 and have in numerous cases been judicially recognised as such.

And this may be a convenient place to point out how in reality there is no inconsistency between two apparently inconsistent decisions already mentioned. In one of these a bequest for the relief of the poor inhabitants" of a certain parish was, as we have seen, interpreted by the Court so as not to include those poor inhabitants who were relieved by the parish, inasmuch as extending it to those who otherwise were dependent upon parochial relief would be a relief of the poor-rate or other parochial burdens, and would thus be "giving to the rich and not to the poor." Yet the other case, of which indeed there is more than one example, a bequest left expressly" in aid of the rate for the relief of the poor," was upheld as charitable. These decisions,

! See Jarman, p. 211.

2 See Shelford, p. 75; 1 Jarman, p. 209.

See I. E. RECORD (Third Series), vol. vi., n. 5 (Jan. 1885), page 280. 4 See page 380.

however, are in no way inconsistent. In the former there was question of a bequest, not in favour of the parish generally, but in favour of the poor of the parish. The judicial decision, then, regarded solely the interpretation of the bequest as thus made. It by no means implied that a valid charitable bequest might not be made for the relief of the parish generally, by a gift in aid of the poorrate or other parochial burthens. Indeed from what has just been explained in the preceding paragraphs, it is manifest that a bequest so made should of necessity be regarded as "charitable." But it would be "charitable" as a public or general benefit to the parish, and not as a benefit conferred specially on "the poor."

Thus, then, we see how the two decisions in question fit in with one another. It is one thing to shut out as inadmissible a particular interpretation of a bequest which has been made expressly in favour of" the poor" of a parish, and a totally distinct thing to lay down that, outside the limits thus laid down, a bequest which has been made, not specially in favour of "the poor" of the parish, but in favour of the parish generally, would not be a valid charitable bequest. And so the matter was judicially explained in a comparatively recent case, in which the application of a certain charitable bequest to purposes usually defrayed from the poor-rate of the district, was sought to be interfered with as inconsistent with the former of the two decisions mentioned above. It was then pointed out by the Master of the Rolls (Lord Romilly) that a valid charitable bequest tending to the relief of the poor might be made in either of the two ways: "whether for the relief of the poor, in aid of the poor rate and other parochial burthens (as was the case in the bequest then before the court)," or "for the relief of the poor" only, wholly independent of any reference to the relief of the poor-rates or other parochial burthens. In either event the bequest would be a valid charitable bequest. But in the former case it would be a bequest in favour of "the parish" generally: in the latter case it would be a bequest in favour exclusively of "the poor" of the parish; and as a matter of course, it is in the latter, and not in the former, sense, that a bequest simply in favour of "the poor" of the parish should be interpreted.1

'See Attorney-General v. Blizzard, 21 Beavan, page 248.

From the exposition, then, thus far set forth, we may infer as a definition of a "charitable" bequest, in the legal sense, sufficiently accurate at least for the purpose of these Papers, that it is a bequest for some purposes which, in the sense more than once explained in the preceding pages, is in the nature of "general" or "public" use, tending (a) to the relief of the poor, (b) to the advancement of learning, (c) to the advancement of religion, or (d) to the advancement of objects of general public utility.

And so it has invariably been held that a bequest of a fund was not "charitable," where it was left to be given in private charity." For, as the Master of the Rolls (Sir Thomas Plumer) pointed out, "there is no case in which 'private' charity has been acted upon by the Court The charities recognised by the Court are

public in their nature.”

On this principle, a bequest in favour of a certain "friendly society was held not to be "charitable." For, as it was argued, such a society was in reality a "private assurance company." "The members," said Vice-Chancellor Hall, in giving judgment in the case, "were to provide by subscriptions and fines a fund to be distributed for their mutual benefit in cases of sickness, lameness, or old age. Poverty of the member at the time of his sickness, or lameness, or old age, was not required to entitle him to an allowance." "It appears to me," concluded the Vice-Chancellor, "the society was not a charitable institution."

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And relying with approval on this decision, the English Court of Exchequer has since decided that a bequest in favour of a certain "Athenæum Mechanics' Institution" was not charitable," it having been decided in the former case that "an institution for mutual benefit is not a charity," and the Mechanics' Institution in question being "a species of club in which a number of persons come together for literary purposes and mutual improvement."s

The practical application of the legal definition of "charity," as thus ascertained, will be found, as we proceed, to present some points of interest.

WILLIAM J. WALSH.

1 See Ommaney v. Butcher, Turner and Russell, page 260.
In re Clark's Trust, 1 Chancery Division, page 497.

3 In re Dutton, 4 Exchequer Division, page 57.

MARY STUART AND ELIZABETH TUDOR.

N Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, is

a

peerless and beautiful Mary Queen of Scots. As she was the centre of contention during life, so, now, almost three hundred years after her murder, the tumult of controversy is heard above her grave. Robertson, Abbot, Doran, Thackery, Dickens, Scott, not to mention a host of fanatical anti-Catholic writers, have branded her as a murderess and an adulteress; as a wicked, abandoned woman whose sufferings were a just punishment for her crimes. Catholics, on the contrary, have always looked upon Mary Stuart as the embodiment of what is good, and noble, and heroic; as the innocent victim of unexampled calumny and outrage. Late researches, as we shall see presently, have confirmed the latter and more charitable view, dispelling any shadows which still hung above the grave of Scotland's most beautiful and most unfortunate Queen, the world-renowned Mary Stuart.

Mary was born in the Palace of Linlithgow, not far from Edinburgh, on the 7th of December, 1542. The clouds of strife, discord, and misfortune gathered even above her infant cradle, for the same notes which rang in an heiress to the Scottish Crown rang out the life of "the poor man's king," and Mary's father James V. "From the tall cataractguttered hills," writes MacLeod, "where sleeps the eternal snow--white, cold, and silent, from the purple moorland where the bee hums in the summer, and the stately ptarmigan and the black-cock lurk and brood; from the glen upon whose sides the tentined stag feeds with uplifted ears; from the still loch, silver or black, or burnished sheet of living gold,' as God's shadow, or sun, or moonlight chanced to fall upon it; from the rough river where golden salmon leap against the rapids; from clusters of larch or fir tree stirred by the northern breeze came the full sound of joy and pain-James is dead, but Scotland hath an heir."

England's Bluebeard, Henry VIII., solicited the hand of the infant Queen first for himself and then for his son Edward. Mary of Lorraine, the Queen Dowager, refused both requests, and as Henry, whose manner of wooing was somewhat rough, had sent an army to seize the child, she had to be carefully guarded, first in the Castle of Linlithgow, and then in the Island of Inchmahone, under the

shadow of Ben Lomond. In her fifth year Mary Stuart was sent to France. She had already been betrothed to Francis, eldest son of Henry II., and so to put her beyond the reach of England as well as the traitors in Scotland, whom gold had purchased, Mary of Lorraine sent her child away from her. On the morning of her departure as she stood with her four Maries beneath the "castled crag" of Dumbarton an eye-witness described her as "one of the most perfect creatures the God of nature ever formed."

Mary remained in France during fourteen years, and this was the happiest period of her life. She was endowed with first-class abilities. She had an hereditary passion for poetry and music, and acquired an extraordinary proficiency in both. George Buchanan made her one of the best Latin scholars of the age. Rousard instructed her in poetry. Her warrior kinsman, the Duke of Guise, made her a bold and graceful rider, while with all her applications to study she found time to make herself the best dancer in the French court; so her beautiful, pure, happy life glided on, as glides the crystal stream, through verdant lawns and undulating meadows, with scarcely a pebble in its course to disturb its silent meanderings.

On April 22, 1558, Mary was married to the Dauphin, afterwards Francis II. Her husband was a drooping, delicate boy, and in December, 1560, after a reign of seventeen months, the white hands of Mary Stuart closed his eyes for ever. Her dead husband was only seventeen years old, and the pale and drooping widow bending over his bier was only thirteen months older. When the days of mourning for her boy-husband were passed, Mary quitted the land of her love and happiness, fair France, and set out for Scotland. While a speck of the French hills was visible she stood upon deck, her eyes blinded with tears, exclaiming again and again, "adieu, France," "beloved France, adieu," and the parting song which she composed in her cabin is prized to this day for its poetry, melody, and

sweetness.

Mary's appearance at this time seems to have been something more than human. The Wizard of Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott, who has been much interested by Mary's misfortunes, thus describes her: "Who is there that at the very mention of Mary Stuart's name has not her countenance before him, familiar as that of the mistress of his youth or the favourite daughter of his advanced age. That brow so truly open and regal; those eyebrows so graceful which

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