The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-03-31

Gill; directing the Committee on City Property to
prepare ordinance providing for the erection of
a new City Hall, and appropriating the MCDoNoGH
bequest temporarily to that purpose. How widely
different such an application of this fund,
even for the time being, will be from
that contemplated by the testator it is worth
while TO consider. Our readers must all re.
member the main features of the singular will
through which we became the joint proprietors
with New Orleans, of princely estate at the
mouth Of the Mississippi. He who amassed this
fortune had toied TO gain it for u.s. harder than
most men labor for their own and their children's
bread. To increase it he had sacrificed his per-
sonal comfort and his every waking moment; and
absorbed in this pursuit, he held only
a distant and ungenial intercourse with
the world seeking no friendships and
repudiating the claims of his kindred. Up to
his latest hour, he strove TO add another and still
another, dollar 10 his boards, so that when his
cherries life was ended, the monuments to the
memory of JOHN MCDoNoGH might be the more
magnificent He had made, as he thought indie
feasible provision for the future management OF
his property Though dead, he desired to control
know half century hence that it was his hand
which still continued to foster the growth of the es-
tate and disburse its income. He directed that not
foot of it should be sod and that no lease should
ever be made for period exceeding twenty-five
years. Certain proportions of the annual rents
were 10 90 TO two charitable societies for forty
fifty years. and other portions were TO be invested
yearly until the accumulations should respectively
amount to millions, out of which the two grand
institutions, to which he looked forward with such
pride, were to be founded in Maryland and Lou
siana. But as if these plans were not gigantic
enough to keep alive the recollection of his name,
he anticipated the day when they should be ac-
complished, and he disposed of the then unincum-
bered revenues These were 10 be forever devoted to
the building and support of schools in the suburbs
of Baltimore and New Orleans, in which the poor
of the two cities were to be educated without
charge. The cold phanthrophy which overlooks
present suffering and tenders assistance TO remoer
generations has small claim to rank among the
virtues, and we decline to believe, therefore, that
benignant charity suggested such schemes as these
They were prompted by the sordid avarice which
could not bear TO contemplate the dispersion Of
such stores ofwealth and by the Unsuitable vanity
of the millionaire which made him loath to
forego his hold upon the worlds regard.
These projects so vast in scope, and so elaborate
in detail were certainly well calculated to effect
the testator's object, and had they been carried
out, the people of two States, at least, would
have been as familiar a century hence with the
name and life of MCDoNoGH, as we are now. But
it is written that man 'heapeh up riches, and
Cannot tell who shall gather them'' and in this
instance as in many millions heretofore, the moral
of the PSalmists song is fifty illustrated. One by
one have the restrictions, with which its late
owner had clogged the usuruct of the property,
been removed. The conditions he imposed upon
the legatees have been declared void, the tenure
by which ne directed them to hold the estate has
been decided to be illegal, and the obligation to
to apply it to the purposes he designated has been
dispensed with. Houses and lands have all been
disposed of at public SALE and in short time the
extent Of the old mans for une, and the nature
of his abortve whms, will be alike forgotten,
save by the profession whose members ruth
lessly destroyed his darling plans. A sum of
money in the City Treasury will soon represent
MCOONoGHs bounty. How it win Ice expended
seems to us we confess, matter of some uncer-
tainty. The proposition to borrow it, in order to
build a City Hall, is, as have stated, now
under consideration, and it would not surprise us
il the investment, when made becomes perma-
nent one. II tie fund should be diverted to other
objects than those contemplated by MCDoNoGH,
it will perhaps he well to spend it in this way
We hope however, the case will be otherwise
- TO-, ,,N
possible to carry out his wishes if W,
desired so to do, and ought tt
conform to them as nearly as is practicable
1t is, of course out of the question to let the prop
erty accumulate until it amounts to the enormous
sum with which he proposed to endow Farm
School, but the poor, who are and always will be
with us, might he educated as the will prescrihes
Schools might be erected, and without any delay
in the suburbs of the city, in which every poo
child could receive, free of cost, "a good Engsl
'educaton.' Such an appropriation would, il
all probability, result more advantageously fo
than any other. 1t matters little now t.
NIcDoNoGH whether his schemes, which have, il
the main, been set aside, are ignored altogether
or whether ,t...
$40 heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,
Or wanders, heaven directed to the poor"
But the obligation to apply his legacy to some c
the objects designated by him is not the less bind
ing on Us because the law has relieved us of il
1t is to be hoped, therefore, that when sewers
hundred thousand dollars sunk in the Cit
Hall, the Councils will remember that it belong
to the MCDoNoGH estate, and will also recoeC
the purposes for which the latter was bequeathe
U.s. -