A TRUE WOMAN'S GIFT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 5, 28 April 1880, Page 4

A TRUE WOMAN'S GIFT.

(From the Dublin Freeman's Journal.)

News reached us this morning (February 11) of a gift so splendid, munificent, magnificent, imperial, so to speak, that we could not trust ourselves to comment upon it or its apportionment, even if time and space allowed us. The Baroness BurdettCoutts, a name which conjures up visions of wealth untold, as well as remembrances of benevolence bounded only by the confines of the earth, has decided upon devoting .£500,000 — half a million sterling — to the amelioration of the distressed tenanty of Ireland. There is no mistake about it ; what the Baroness has been doing for several weeks past eventuates in this princely resolve, which dazzles one with its very mention. Lady BurdettCoutts has had-her special correspondents in this country for some time, and the effect of what they saw, heard, and reported to their mistress is a donation before which the ransoms of kings and the splendor of Eastern tales fade into comparative insignificance. The sterling thousands of Australia evoked in every Irish heart a thrill of gratitude and thankfulness ; the golden sympathy of the New World called up many loving recollections of deeds of brotherhood in a bygone time ; the .£20,000 of Mr. James Gordon Bennett startled two hemispheres with its charitable magnitude; but, without lessening our deep and never-dying appreciation of each and all of these, the gift of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts cannot but be said to eclipse in the astounding glory of its glittering value all the roll of individual largeness which the annals of the world record or recall. As we have said, we dare not trust ourselves to say a word as to its allocation, even if it were otherwise befitting that we should do so. Neither will we contrast the public spirit of the individual with the spiritlessness of the State, as represented by the Ministry. With one scratch of her pen the lady has done what all Imperial England's Government have huxtered over for half a year. In the presence of such an act words of thanks are two weak. It will not be a stay, but it will be an impetus and an example to each to contribute according to their means. Need we chronicle that the Lady Angela Bur-dett-Coutts is the youngest daughter of the late Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., M.P., and Sophia, daughter of the late Thomas Coutts, Esq., banker of London. Her name is a synonym for benevolence. In acknowledgment of having originated and administered the Turkish Compassionate Fund, the Cordon of the Medjidie was conferred on the Baroness two years ago by the Sultan !