QUAINT XMAS CHARITIES

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 5 (Supplement)

QUAINT XMAS CHARITIES

SOME CURIOUS BEQUESTS. Though people are naturally averse to having charity "thrown at their heads,” the poorer folk of Paddington, in London, were for many a generation glad to have their Christmas bread and cheese flung down at them from the eminence of the church steeple. "On Sunday, after Divine service,” says the Grub Street Journal of December 21, 1736, “was performed the annual ceremony of throwing bread and cheese out of Paddington Church steeple among the spectators, and giving them ale. The custom was established by two women, who purchased five acres of land to the above use in commemoration of the particular charity whereby they had been relieved when in extreme necessity.” As whimsical a charity was that founded by one Henry Greene, an odd character of the early eighteenth century, who left a sum of money, the interest of which was to be spent annually in }>roviding “four poor women with four green waistcoats, to be laced with green galloon lace, and to be delivered to the women on or before December 26, so that they may be worn on Christinas Day.” William Robinson, one-time sheriff of Hull, contrived to have his memory kept green at a much smaller cost thaivmany men would pay for even a limited immortality. By his will he directed that every Christmas Day twelve loaves of bread should be given to as many pugwidows; but in order to qualify for the loaves the widows must present themselves by the testator’s graveside and receive their Christmas doles over the bones of their benefactor. A curious bequest was that of Mr. Charles James Card, a naval officer, who died a few years ago, leaving a sum of £5OO io be invested in Consols, and its income distributed every Christmas among twelve poor people of Wareham, Dorset. The recipients were to be chosen by the rector and the local dissenting ministers, a number of slips equal to the number of claimants being provided. Twelve of these slips were to bear the initials of the benefactor. C.J.C., and those who drew these marked slips were to divide the income.