The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-19 00:00:00

lublie bej

ins to cool down and the money to
keep the bantling alive is wanted they find the real
pinch of the matter. Other Peers have had their
weakness preyed on, other secretaries have used
their obstetric talent, new institutions undermine
older ones ; yet there is "'the Mission," " the
Asylum," " the Institution," there is its office, there
are its officers ; expenditure is certain, receipts
seem problematical, as equal to meet it. Now comes
the resort to the forcing system; "individuals are
said to be ready with 100 if ten others will find the
same sum," &c. &c.
I can quite understand all this as natural to the
circumstances under which many institutions have
sprung into life, and the purposes for which they
exist ; it is lamentable, it is worse when large
religious societies have resort to equivocal means to
keep up their position. To me it is most deplorable
to see the shifts made to sustain a particular reli-
gious interest ; whether it aims at the conversion
of heathen Jews, Catholics, at home or abroad,
Bible-dealing; tract-dealing, every truly good end
of religious economy, is in my eyes degraded by
being puffed and pushed by puffing as if it was the
cause of an antibilious pill or a hair-dye. When I
know, too, the large staff of well-paid officers whose
existence depends upon the success of this system,
I view it with the greater abhorrence.
It is well here to say, that some of the leviathan
religious societies draw large revenues from the
public by contributions which are scarcely to be
considered voluntary. Episcopal invitations and the
pressure of religious party feeling act as a powerful
system of something like exaction. There are cer-
tain societies which carry a well defined party flag.
Few clergymen have the courage to hold aloof from
" party ;' the bias of the human mind tends towards
it, religion has its Brooke's and Carlton and Reform
interest. The parish clergyman soon finds he must
collect for the episcopal Conservative, or the more
liberal and less purely ecclesiastical societies ; he
may find it difficult to avoid the importunity of the
very liberal mixed societies. One or more of them
have attained a position in the majority of parishes
which gives them a sort of income-tax authority. I
received from all parts of the country, from
men of all shades of opinion, proof how this
burden is now felt, how it for ever taxes their
pockets, and compels them to struggle with
their own parochical necessities that they may
yield to the claims of these four or five sturdy men-
dicants. I have known an organist's salary carried
off from a country parish to help the establishment
of a colonial bishopric, with a name half the parish
had never heard of. There are many poor clergy
who are reduced to use a painful system of begging
from their parishioners to find even a portion of
their school's expense, who are yet under a kind of
compulsion to have repeated " collections" for so-
cieties, the claims of which they are considered quite
unequal to advocate, and thercfore the expense of a
" deputation" must be met out of the funds.
As to the way the business of societies and insti-
tutions is but too often conducted I can scarcely
speak too strongly. The balance-sheets are most
unsatisfactory; they are very often intentionally
delusive. Items are " clubbed" under "Miscella-
neous Expenses," or " Sundries." I have traced in
several the existence of a system of deliberate fraud.
These items, in fact, very often are used to conceal
" irregularity," to cover fraud ; to square a total
auditing is a matter not of inquisition, to see that
all is right, but to make all appear right. I have
some curious details as to the time really given to
" auditing" the annual accounts in some of the
large societies. This is, however, a matter which
some little time hence I hope to see made very clear
to the public. It must be reformed.
Some of the societies are simply large trading
firms, with utterly irresponsible partners dealing
with the money of others. They print, bind, ware-
house, export, sell wholesale and retail. They do
this on a most extensive scale ; their " life" seems
to depend upon showing how great a stock they can
each year dispose of. The keenest mercantile in-
telligence fails, I find, to discover from their pub-
lished statements their real loss or profit, the real
value of the stock they possess at any one moment.,
and yet they profess to give a yearly account of
their stewardship I Bear in mind, a railway ac-
count may be, very often is—" cooked" to prove the
value of the concern—how it flourishes. Societies
and institutions always want to show need, need of
more capital ; they flourish with trumpets over the
past, they look with foreboding to the future, say-
ing—Give—give. We have purchased fields, we
want labourers to dig, tools to dig with ; we have
created an appetite for our wares, which craves in
too great a proportion even to our present noble
supply, &c.

The root of the evil is,—that charity, piety is clique
ridden. A few men by industry have monopolized
the working of these matters. The long parade of
great names, lay and clerical, has become a mere
outward visible sign of no real inward, working con-
trolling power. It only needs that patrons, pre-
sidents, vice-presidents, noble and right rev, com-
mitteemen should be vigilant to require truth in
the reports, honesty in the accounts, and a revolu-
tion would be worked. Charity and piety would
then go their way less stained by the fraud of their
agents, less degraded in the bombast of their " Re-
ports."

- The objects, I repeat, are excellent as the rule.
It is a thing for a nation to be proud of, to see her
nobility so directly proclaimed as the supporters,
originators, advocates of such vast, noble under-
takings. There is no reason why the financial sys-
tem of these great and good institutions should not
be so revised as to make expenditure clear, fraud
difficult. There is every reason why that which
should be a centre of piety should not be a scene of
desperate temptation. I am coolly told in print that
good causes cannot be worked at a less expenditure
than 25 per cent. on income. I admit it if the pre-
sent extravagance in salaries, &c., is to continue. I
speak the experience of men who have been in the
thick of the battle as secretaries and " deputations."
"Let the public demand the reform, the societies
will give it ; more will be done at less cost, and
more will be freely given to do it." S. G. 0.

TILE LATE FIGHT FOR THE MAX:
HONSHU'.

In the account which appeared in our columns of
:his contest we omitted to mention that the fight
asted two hours and 20 minutes, it having com-
menced at 25 minutes past 7 and being concluded at
a quarter to 10. As some of the supporters of
lieenan have spread a rumour that the English
champion would have been defeated had the fight
been allowed to go on, we may mention on the
authority of the referee, that he clo,ed the con-
flict only in compliance with the wishes of the
American's friends. When the ring was broken
the referee was forced away, and was outside
the crowd round thu combatants while the last
three or four rounds were fought. The friends of
Heenan insisted on his return to stop the fight,
claiming, in accordance with the rules of the ring,
that when the enclosure was broken into the com-
bat should cease. They therefore made a passage
for him to return to the men and stop them, which
he accordingly did, in spite of the wishes of Sayers's
supporters, who were confident of his winning in a
few minutes more. Yesterday Sayers went to the
office of the referee, at Bell's Life office, in the
Strand. He was recognised on entering, and an im-
mense erettd assembled to witness his departure, by
whom he was most vociferously cheered. Beyond
his nose and month being swollen and his lips cht,
he showed scarcely any marks of the desperate en-
counter he had passed through. tlis arm was bound
up and in a sling,
,for though it turns out that none
of the bonus were fractured, yet some of the tendons
wore broken and the muscles so mulch contused and
injured that he it still unable to move his hand, or
use the limb at ail. This injury he sustained in the
fourth round, in stopping one of the American's tre-
mendous blows, and an attemrt *Mai he made to
ctiv
rabuahhdisasoeeimtsewafihiststeooiin one of the subsequent struggles gate him
such pain
it
toiotochkflhhhiantatvhoant
hecei
seasoned
ehfibiaragnees distressed him more than the blows
he received from his antagotiit. the knock-down
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ad, atmdfhoi
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dreadful).hvt
sieeht
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American's
memi
teoeacer.rydnieticaurhe ustmi
littleiri
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hour
the contest was stwepaapeidtlaas he considersa,. that he Was
certainug h he
eo
says he felt so tleas t
dliOstrmeiaaneudteisthmatorilea;
have continued the fight littlefor another hour. It
couldtho
would certaihly appear, from the sliehts punishment which he marks 9f
_ sh9a yesterday, and the
genP:ai vigour of his appearance that he did not
over-estimate his powers itt this respect. To the
proposal that the battle should be considered as
drawn, Sayers) we believe, strehgly objects, and
expresses an ardent wish to meet his adversary
again, who he maintains shall never put
forward a claim for the English champion's belt
while he has the ability to defend it. Heenan's
left hand was very bad yesterday and much swollen'
He was also too much punished about the face to
make any appearance at the office of the referee.
No other hostile meeting will ever take place be-
tween the two men, as the supporters of both con-
sider that the courage and endurance of each have
been sufficiently proved, and they will therefore
consent to the late contest being considered as a
drawn battle.— Times.