The Express.
London, England, 1850-02-18 00:00:00

Ts the charitable institutions and educational

endowments of this country, there have been, and
still are, various orders of abuses. There is the abuse
of downright and deliberate misappropriation, so
finely exhibited in the lstrocioary practices of the
episcopal. PRETTIIANS and the prelatical GUIL-
FORDS, in Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and
Hampshire, whose misdeeds are now under investi-
gation by the Court of Chancery. There is the abuse
of affecting to fulfil the bounded obligation of sworn
statutes by ostensibly following their directions,
whilst, imbdantially and virtually, disregarding
their true intent and meaning ; an abuse of which the
Dean and Chapter of Rochester have recently afforded
so notable an example as to have drawn upon
themselves the attention of the Queen's
Bench. There is the abuse of concealing
from those interested in the application of
the charitable funds all knowledge of their amount,
their objects, and their distribution—of which the
Crewe Trust Is so decidedly the richest instance, as to
have at once called for the interference of the new
Charity Commission. And there is the abuse of the
growth in the value of the endowment hating
brought with it no corresponding augmentation of
the founder's generous designs and avowed willies.
Of this last order of abuse the Charter-house appears
to be so flagrant a specimen as to render any efforts to
extend its usefulness, by exposing its present insuffi-
ciency, certainly a matter of metropolitan and almost
of national interest.

Few, scattered, and difficult of access are, however,
the materials for the task. Fortified and protected
against popular assaults and parliamentary inroads,
by the aristocratical, prelatical, and judicial charac-
ter of its, so-called, governors, but real dispensers of
its patronage, the Charter-house has hitherto escaped
all inquiry. From the investigations of the old
Charity Commission it was excepted by name in the
statute which conferred legal powers on that body ;
though, unlike the other excepted endowments, it
has neither an ecclesiastical origin nor special visitors.
And from the operations of the new Charity. Commis-
sion (instituted to apply the better spirit of the
present day to the shortcomings of the former com-
mission, which was controlled by the spasmodic death-
struggles of toryism), the Charter-house is, by the
very terms of that commission's royal appointment,
equally withdrawn. It is, therefore, left for the press
to on whether the Charter-house will not open its
portals to the battery of public opinion. So, en-
esuraged by the case of St. Cross, we propose to make
the attempt : not, indeed, to show that any of Lord
GUILTORDs selfish meal-practices can be imputed to
the noble, grave, and reverend signiors, who are sup-
posed to dispense the bounty of THOMAS Burrow,
but to prove that with means to instruct aid inform
the poor of one-half of London, they only maintain
forty poor men and educate se many rich boys.
Though occupying the site of the old Carthusian
monastery, the Charter-House, as it now exist., is,
comparatively, a modern foundation. It dates only
from the early part of the seventeenth century, and
is of private origin. In Mr. THOMAS Burrow,
merchant and banker, of London, the illustrious
ELIZABETH had a subject equal in merit and in
success to Sit THOMAS GRESHAM. The world had
used him nobly; and, worthily did he resolve to dis-
pose of the world's gear. Having, very much in the
public service of his country, accumulated a large for-
tune, which he invested in land, he determined
to devote it to what had, in his long experience,
pained him most throughout life, viz, the relief of un-
fortunate gentlemen, and the removal of ignorance in
poor but promising lads.
The design Burrow thus formed he proceeded de-
liberately and carefully to place on solid foundation.
It was not left to the uncertain and doubtful execu-
tion of a testamentary disposition, but occupied the
anxious labours of the closing years of his useful life.
Having, as he thought, found a proper site for his in-
tended foundation at Hallingbury, in Essex, he
sought for it the approbation of his sovereign and
the sanction of parliament ; and these he received in
a statute passed in the sixth of James I. By that
act SUTTON was empowered to found and endow an
hospital at Hallingbury, to constitute sixteen go-
vernors into a corporation, and to vest in such corpo-
ration his manors, lordships, and estates in Essex,
Lincolnshire, Wiltshire, Cambridgeshire, and in
Hackney and Tottenham. The di sign of the hospital
was therein stated to be the support of decayed gen-
tlemen and the education of poor elikben ; and power
was given by it to SUTTON to make statutes for car-
rying out its objects, and, failing its exercise by him,
this power was transmitted to the governors.
Within two years, however, after its enactment,
SUTTON found, on the its of the dissolved Carthusian
monastery, a better position for his hospital, and,
having bought it from Lord SUFFOLK, he procured in
1611 letters patent from JAMES I. to enable him to
change its locality and to give him further powers to
carry oat his design. By this time, too, SUTTON'S
plans had become more matured ; and in these letters
patent his scheme is better developed. The hospital