A GOOD RICH MAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GOOD RICH MAN.

MILLIONAIRE'S GOLDEN RULE.

FRIEND OF POOR BOYS

GOOD DEEDS FOR 50 YEARS

CHARITY KEPT A SECRET. One of the most beautiful of lives has just been ended. The story of Charles Edward Baring Young, who loved boys, is told in a London paper. If you had seen him in the street you would have thought lie needed help," a friend says of lain, " so shabby did he look with his worn coat and frayed trousers." One would not have thought Mr. Young could have boen to Eton, or guessed that in his youth people said he might have been a Cabinet Minister. Least of all would one have dreamed that he had given away a million pounds. The handsome, shabby old man guarded his secret from the world so well that when ho died only a few friends knew what a wonderful story had ended. At last the truth is creeping out. Charles Baring Young was born wit!) all the gifts that made him sure of the world's favour, aristocratic birth, wealth, good looks, and a brilliant mind. If he had been ambitious ho would certainly have become one of the great figures of the day, perhaps Prime Minister. But while lie was still at Eton be had begun to feci for the poor and sorrowful. He worked with Mr. Quintin Ilogg, the father of the British Lord Chancellor and founder of the Regent Street Polytechnic. Mr. Young entered Parliament, hut ho felt that he could help the needy better in another way. Retiring to his beautiful estato at Daylesford, in Worcestershire, near the* Oxfordshire border, ho founded a unique thing—a charity which was kept a secret. He took three houses in Fitzroy Square, where 66 homeless boys could be received, and then lie built the Kingham Homes on Kingham Hill, in Oxfordshire, eight houses for 30 boys each, where tho waifs could grow up in country air and learn almost any trado they chose. Workshops and Factories.

This benefactor built costly workshops and employed highly-skilled instructors. Ho laid out 500 acres as an agricultural school for boys who preferred farming, and bought a huge tract of land in Canada for those who wished to settle there. He also founded two factories to five the boys employment in 'ater years. He endowed the homes richly. They never appealed to the public for money; it all came from one man. who forbade his friends to speak of it. He spent money on these homes, and on all tho enterprises connected with them, as' if they had been his yacht, or his racehorses, or his business, or his hunt, or his shooling-box. Mr. Young was happy to the end. Only two or three days beforo he passed away ho was listening to the boys singing hymns at his open window. " Let them sing on," he said: "I could listen for hours." He himself had written a hymn, and,' with the help of his sister, prepared a volume of 1200 hymns. Tho faith of Mr. Younir was very simple: ho believed in the Word of God as plain men understand it. The chaplain of the homes, who knew him well for many years, has said of him that he never swerved a hair's-breadth to right or left from what he believed to be richt.

Story of an Epitaph. Mr. Young was shabby as lio went about the streets, and for a very Rood mason: lie went about looking for little boys in trouble. Many a poor little guttersnipe whom lie found crying on a doorstep has passed the matriculation examination and become an eminently prosperous citizen. He loved and helped every boy individually. He thought of them for 50 years, and gave up his life to them, so that his last act was to do something for one of his boys—the last thing one friend can do for another. The child had died, and Mr. Young, who was dying, dictated an cnitaph for the boy's grave. On the next day Charles Baring Young died at 70. One who knew Sir. Young declared that " he was the most lovable man I have ever known," and described how, though he had three or four cars at his country house, he would insist- on the same old " growler" meeting him when ho returned from a visit to London. lie wore an old hat, faded green, and promised his wife a thousand times to buy a new one. He kept a piano factory and an iron foundry going at a loss ,jn London to help to give boys work.