The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-03-05 00:00:00

HEAVY CLAIM FOR TITHES.

A case in which the executors of the late Mr. E. J.
Esdaile, lay rector and iropropriator of the tithes of
the. parish of St, Botolph-without, Aldersgate, Lon-
don, claimed 3 sum of nearly £90,000 as the value of
tithes arising from properties taken by the Metropo-
litan and Metropolitan District (City Lines and Ex-
tension) Railway Company for the continuation of the
Inner Circle Railway, came before Mr. G. Pownall,
umpire, and Mr. Joseph Brown, Q.C., assessor, at the
Institution of Surveyors, on Friday in last week.
The arbitrators were Mr. Robert Ritchie and Mr.
E. Fuller. The counsel for the claimants were Mr.
E. Clarke, Q.C. 'Alp., Mr. Maclean and Mr. S.
Woolf. The railway company were represented by
Mr. R. E. Webster, Q.C., and Mr. H. L. Smith.
It appeared that the amount which Mr. Esdaile had
been receiving from these tithes up to September,
1879, was £1,637 a year, but he claimed to be en-
titled, under an Act ot Henry VIII., to demand a
maximum, sum of 2s. 9d. in the pound, and as in
many cases it had only been levied at the ratn of
is. 6d„ the income to which the claimant was actually
entitled would be £2,825, reduced by cost of collec-
tion to £2,547. At 30 years' purchase, with 10 per
cent. for compulsory purchase, this came to over
£84,000. The claimant had, as a matter of fact,
increased all the charges to 2s. 9d. in Michaelmas,
after the passing of the company's Act, but before
the date of his receiving notice to treat, which was
given in May, 1880, and he at the same time greatly
increased the assessment on which the tithe was levied,
though it was still much below the actual value.
The amount to be paid by the company was by their
Act to be calculated on the "last assessment," and the
question arose whether that meant the last assessment
before the passing of the Act or the last before the
notice to treat. This point involved a difference of
about £30,000, and it was decided to take the opinion
of the Court of Queen's Bench upon it. Mr. Brown,
remarking that a case involving so large an issue would
in all probability be carried to the House of Lords,
ruled that the last assessment before the passing of the
Act was what was meant by the Act; but if the last.
-assessment was illegal by reason of the rate ofAithe
having beetelAcrea.sed beybtid the ctistamarYpaymeht,
they would have to go into evidence upon that.

The proceedings were adjourned that the counsel
might agree on a case to be stated for the opinion of
the superior court.

BEQUESTS BY MR. CARLYLE.

At a meeting of the Senatua Academicus of Edinburgh
University, on Saturday, a deed of mortification by Thomas
Carlyle in favour of that body, for the foundation of ten
bursaries in the Faculty of Arts, was read. In it he says :

I, Thomas Carlyle, residing at Chelsea, presently
Rector in the University of Edinburgh, from the love,
favour, and affection which I bear to that University,
and from my interest in the advancement of educa-
tion in my native Scotland, as elsewhere, for them
and for other more peculiar reasons, which also I wish
to record, do intend, and am now in the act of
making to the said University a bequest, as under-
written, of the estate of "Craigenputtock, which is
now my property. Craigenputtock lies at the head
of the Parish of Dunscore, in Nithsdale, Dumfries-
shire. The extent is of about 1,800 acres; rental
at present on lease of nineteen years, is £250; the
annual worth, with the improvements now in pro-
gress, is probably £3OO. Craigenputtock was for
many generations the patrimony of a family named
Welsh, the eldest son usually a "John Welsh," in
series going back, think some, to the famous John
Welsh, son-in-law of the reformer Knox. The last
male heir of the family was John Welsh, Esq.,
surgeon, Haddington. His one child and heires4was
my late dear, magnanimous, much-loving, and, to me
inestimable wife, in memory of whom, and of her
constant nobleness and piety towards him and
towards me, I am now—she having been the last of
her kindred—about to bequeath to Edinburgh Univer-
sity with whatever piety is in me this Craigen-
puttock, which was theirs and hers, on the terms and
for the purposes and under the conditions
underwritten. Therefore I do mortify, and
dispose to, and in favour of the said Uni-
versity of Edinburgh, for the foundation and
endowment of ten equal bursaries, to be called the
"John Welsh Bursaries," in the said University,
heritably and irredeemably, all and whole the lands
of Upper Craigenputtock. The said estate is not to
be sold, but to be kept and administered as land, the
net annual revenue of it to be divided into ten equal
bursaries, to be called, as aforesaid, the "John Welsh
Bursaries." The Senatus Academicus shall bestow
them on the ten applicants entering the University
who, on strict and thorough examination and open
competitive trial by examiners whom the Senatus will
appoint for that end, are judged to show the best
attainment of actual proficiency and the best like-
lihood of more in the department or faculty called of
arts, as taught there. Examiners to be actual pro-
fessors in said faculty, the fittest whom the Senatus
can select, with fit assessors or coadjutors and
witnesses, if the .Senatus see good, and always the
report of the said examiners to be minuted and signed,
and to govern the appointments made, and to be re-
corded therewith. More specially I appoint that five
of the "John Welsh Bursaries " shall be given for the
best proficiency in mathematics—l would rather say
"in mathesis," if that were a thing to be judged of
from competition—but practically above all in pure
geometry, such being porennial, the symptom not
only of steady application, but of a clear, methodic
intellect, and offering in all epochs good promise for
all manner of arts and pursuits. The other five
bursaries I appoint to depend (for the present and in-
definitely onwards) on proficiency in classical learning,
that is to say, in knowledge of Latin, Greek, and
English, all of these, or any two of them. This also
gives good promise of a young mind, but as I do
not feel certain that it gives perennially or will
perennially be thought in Universities to give the
best promise, I am willing that the Senatus of the
University, in case of a change of its opinion on this
point hereafter in the course of generations, shall
bestow these latter five bursaries on what it does
then consider the most excellent proficiency in matters
classical, or the best proof of a classical mind, which
directs its own highest effort towards teaching and
diffusing in the new generations that will come.
The bursaries to be open to free competition of
all who came to study in Edinburgh University, and
who have never been of any other University, the
competition to be held on or directly before or
after their first matriculation there. Bursaries
to be always given on solemnly strict and faith-
ful trial to the worthiest, or if (what in jus-
tice can never happen, though it illustrates my inten-
tion) the claims of two were absolutely equal, and
could not be settled by further trial, preference is to
fall in favour of the more unrecommended and un-
friended under penalties graver than I or any highest
mortal, can pretend to impose, but which I can never
doubt—as the law of eternal justice, inexorably valid,
whether noticed or unnoticed, pervades all corners of
space and of time—are very sure to be punctually
exacted if incurred. This is to be the perpetual rule
for the Senatus in deciding.
Raving stated some other conditions, Mr. Carlyle con-
cludes :

And so may a little trace of help to the young heroic
soul struggling for what is highest spring from this
poor arrangement and bequest. May it run for ever,
if it can, as a thread of pure water from the Scottish
rocks, trickling into its little basin by the thirsty way-
side for those to whom it veritably belongs. Amen..
Such is my bequest to Edinburgh University. In wit-
ness whereof these presents, written upon this and the
two preceding pages by James Steven Burns, clerk to
John Cook, writer to the signet, are subscribed by me
at Chelsea, the 20th day of June, 1867, before these
witnesses: John Forster, barrister-at•law, man of
letters &c., residing at Palace-gate House, Kensing-
ton, London;: and James Anthony Froude, man of
letters, residing at No. 5, Onslow-gardens, Brompton.
London.—(Sieed) T. Carlyle; John Forster, wit-
ness; A. Iroude, witness.