The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-26 00:00:00

BRITANNIA.

Tnl Ptivvria. THE (771.1.11ii9;ITTRIK E OR, TII HI IR-
Elms 01.' FIRE II:1111'. Mr. G. liuultWour ; Mr. and Mrs.
M •11 4111 c : Mewl, II iblrlonuult and Ormon4le other Entertain-
ments.—To conclude with NICK Olt THE W11.11k4.

MOH WATIR AT LONDON BIIDOL

its DAT:Zio;;tinc— eat. 40m. Oh. Aftertsoon, 47. a.

LONDON, IVEfiNENDAY, JUNE 20.

THE House of Lords was engaged last night in
a discussion which might have seemed more
appropriate to it as a judicial than as a legislative
assembly. It was occupied with the will of the
late Mr. THOVIA.4 BROWN. That document has
sot two learned Universities—London and Dublin
—by the ears. The deepest draughts of the
Pierian spring do not seem to quench the nun
anent fawv. A matter of thirty thousand pounds
is at stake ; and those distinguished corporations
contend for it with all the earneatneas, and with
something of the acrimony, which might charac-
terise individual claimants. The late THOMAS BROWN
was an Irish gentleman who died some time
since from the effects of an accident in
London, leaving behind him a will which
has afforded employment to barristers in
the Court of Chancery, which has taxed the in-
genuity of the Charity Commissioners, and which
has finally been the subject of grave deliberation
in the House of Lords. Mr. BROWN bequeathed
property, estimated at the value of 30,0001., to the
University of London, for the establishment of a
sort of hospital or sanatorium for animals, both
birds and beasts—we do not know whether reptiles
and fishes were included—in which they were to be
carefully tended, like human patients, with a view
to the promotion of their own happiness and the
advancement of knowledge. In these days, when
vivisection is practised and defended in the interests
of science, and on the ground that it is not very
painful (and we dare say it is not—to the operator),
the eccentricity which associates benevolence with
science was sure to bring upon the testator the
imputation of insanity. Mr. MILL, in his book
on " Liberty," has expressed his alarm at the
readiness which jurors exhibit to convict of
lunacy men whose ways and opinions dc •
part in any degree from the beaten
tracks of custom. The Court of Chancery,
appealed to by the next of kin, decided, how-
ever, that the will was legally a good one. Pore's
line about " endowing a college or a cat " but
faintly anticipated Mr. Bacism'a testamentary
dispositions ; for he has endowed, by one and the
same instrument, both a college and a cat, and
not a cat alone, but an entire happy family of
birds and beasts, in perpetuity. The motives of
this strange bequest did not transpire in the con-
versation of the Peers. Mr. BROWN may have
had theories about the lower animals. It is
possible, though historically improbable, that he
held the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmi-
gration of souls. He may have supposed that
in providing for an infirm gib cat or a worn-out
rat-catcher's dog, he was consulting the benefit
of some near relation. He certainly cannot
have been a convert to the speculation o:
DESCARTES, that animals are but cunningly
contrived pieces of mechanism simulating sen-
tient and intelligent life ; for no one would
think of sending the model of a dog or a
horse to a hospital. The doctrine of the Jesuit
father, who held that the souls of denions
were imprisoned in the bodies of the brutes,
and that their hell consisted in their sub-
jection to man—a conception which, if it be bad
theology, is very good satire on human treat-
ment of the beasts—probably never reached
the ears of Mr. THOMAS BROWN. He may
have been equally innocent of the hope
cherished by LUTHZE, and WESLEY, and others,
that to beings who partake of so many of
the properties of human nature the possibility of
a future life was not dogmatically closed. Per-
haps if Mr. Browns felt, with Dr. ARNOLD, the lot
of the brute creation too painful to be contem-
plated, he did not feel it too painful to be alle-
viated ; he may have found his four-footed com-
panions and friends more engaging and faithful
than his human associates ; or he may have yielded
to nothing better than a whim or a caprice.
Be this as it may, he bequeathed 30,0001. to the
London University for the purpose of endowing
an asylum for infirm animals and a school of
animal science. The property was to accumulate
for fifteen years. If the University refused the
bequest, or if after a term of years it failed to
give effect to the will, the testator directed
that the money should be given to the Uni-
versity of Dublin, for the endowment therein
of Professorships of Sanscrit, Arabic, and other
Oriental languages. The Senate of the Lon-
don University is ready to accept the trust
reposed in it, and to carry it out, if needful, to
the letter. But the sum, it is alleged, is insuffi-
cient for the building of a hospital and for the
other purposes prescribed by Mr. BROWN.
Through the Charity Commissioners, therefore,
the Senate of the London University appeal
to Parliament to enable them to carry
out the spirit without adhering to the pre•

ciao stipulations of the testator's bequest. The'
object of BaowN's Charity Bill, of which the
Duke of Miamioxoucit last night moved the
second reading, is to substitute for the hospital
contemplated by Mr. Bnown certain professorships
of veterinary science. But this, as Lord CeixNs
justly argued, would not be to carry out Mr.
BROWN'S will, but to make a new one for him.
His will has been decided by the Court of
Chancery to be a good one, and it is not for the
Legislature to reconstruct it. The contingent re-
version of property to the University of Dublin
in case of refusal or default on the part of the
University of London, was no doubt intended
to bind the latter learned body to the strict
execution of the trust reposed in it. Li-
berality of interpretation is not admissible in
the case of so eccentric a disposition of property ; it
is impossible to say what was essential in the tes-
tator's mind, and what indifferent, and that he
desired the end, but not the means. No doubt,
as Lord Itussint. said, Parliament has in many
eases taken and given power to modify the
details of a bequest in order to carry out more
effectually the testator's intentions in their general
scope. But these precedents do not apply to the
case of Bitown'sCharity, in which the intention of
the founder is clear that, unless certain things
be done which the London University wishes to
be relieved from the necessity of doing, the pro-
perty in question shall be set apart to the pro-
motion of Oriental learning in the University of
Dublin. The ape of the testator's design is ex-
pressed by an alternative, which alternative the
Charity Commissioners and the London University
propose to disallow. The refusal of the House of
Lords to assent to the second reading of the Bill
promoted by those authorities was, therefore, war-
ranted. It was impossible to resist the force of
Lord CAIRNS'S aroments. We fear, however,
that Trinity College, Dublin, will take little by
this decision ; for the London University, it
seems, is ready, if required, to carry out the
trust according to the terms of the bequest.
The animated protests of Lord ROME, Lnrd TAL-
BOT DE Mearnine, and the Bishop of Down and
CONNOR, in the interest of Dublin, and their
attempt to make out a new case of injustice to
Ireland, were wide of the mark. The instinct of
mendicity seems as strong in Irish peers as in
Irish peasants. Meantime, Mr. BROWN'S will
Will take its place among the curiosities
of law and character. But if it and
the institution it contemplates really tend to
promote a more considerate treatment of the
animals useful to man, and a more constant sense
of the duties which we owe to them, by the very
fact of their dependence upon and subjection to
us, the eccentricity of Bnown's Charity may claim
a place among those follies which are wiser than
ordinary good sense and prudence.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)