The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

THE ROYAL VICTORIA PATRIUDIC
ASYLUM.

THE FOUNDATION STONE of a new asylum, des-
tined for the reception of 300 orphan daughters of
soldiers, sailors, and marines, was laid by her
Majesty on Saturday. The cost of the erection and
endowment of the asylum will be defrayed out of the
surplus funds still remaining in the hands of the
Commissioners of the Patriotic Fund—a sufficient
surplus from which fund still remains to admit
of 38,000/. being given for the erection of the
building, and of 140,0001. to provide an endowment for
this institution, intended for the " perpetual conso-
lation and encouragement of those who hereafter

may die for their country."
The asylum is to be constructed to accommodate 300
girls, and, so far as we were enabled to ascertain, it
is to be built after the design of the famous Heriot's
Hospital of Edinburgh, omitting, however, much
of that ornate style of decoration which would un-
necessarily absorb an undue portion of the fends at
present available. The site which the building is to
occupy is a very pleasant one—on Wandsworth
Common, a short distance from the Clapham station
of the South-Western Railway, overlooking on one
side the Wandsworth House of Correction, and the
very pretty gothic building of the Freemasons'
Asylum for Female Orphans.
The ceremony of laying the foundation-stone was
conducted last Saturday with great state by her
Majesty in the presence of her illustrious guests and
a brilliant crowd of distinguished persons. Her
Maiesty arrived about five p.m., and, after certain
preliminaries, his Royal Highness the Prince Con-
sort, as President of the Committee, presented her
Majesty with an address from the Patriotic Fund,
detailing the origin and objects of its institution,
with the results of its labours and the immediate
object of the erection of this asylum :

The orphans admitted (said the address) into this insti•
tution will be carefully instructed in their moral and reli-
gious duties, and, in addition to a useful elementary educa-
tion, will be taught those branches of industrial knowledge
which will fit them to perform the duties of domestic
servants; and, when they may become wives and mothers.
will enable them to manage their households with economy,
and, by habits of cleanliness and order, to contribute to
the comfort and cheerfulness of their homes. Such is the
proposed object of the institution which your Majesty is
graciously pleased to patronise by permitting it to bear
your illustrious name and by gracing it with your presence
this day.
The Queen replied :

I gladly avail myself of this occasion to express the great
satisfaction I have derived from the gratifying evidence
presented to me of the manner in which my faithful sub-
jects throughout the whole extent of my dominions, and
in the most distant parts of the world, have evinced their
genuine sympathy with my own feelings of admiration for
the ;.!allant conduct and enduring fortitude of my naval and
military forces, by their munificent contributions to the
funds for the relief of the widows and orphans of the brave
men who have fallen in the discharge of their duty to their
Sovereign and their country. You have fully justified the
confidence placed in you by your judicious and impartial
distribution of these funds, and I entirely approve of the
appropriation of a portion of them to the erection and per-
manent endowment of an institution in the success of which
I shall ever feel the warmest interest.