The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1868-05-21
AMERICAN AND ENGLISH LlRERAv
lTY

AVA ~ AlsH AaBERAI.-
From the London Spectator.
There are at this moment hundred
enterprises Of almost national impor-
lance, which could be set going by SIM
gle gifts quite within the power of
scores, not to say hundreds, of rich
men, and no one expects that any OF
them will obtain such gifts. In Amer
lea they are common enough. Gifts Of
princely amounts, amounts which
would yield fortune in mere interest,
have been repeatedly made to great
American cities, to colleges, to Libraries,
and this during the lifetime Of the
donors, but We can scarcely recall an
instance Of the kind in Great Britain.
The iberality Of the country in certain
ways is astonishing. 1t is, We believe,
no exaggeration to say that more money
is collected in London every year for
missions, charities of all kinds, schools,
and the relief Of calamities abroad, than
her Whole municipal taxation, and the
private almsgivinss seems to know no
limit. It would not pay an entire
criminal class in Paris to live by wri-
ting begging letters to Parisiaus, but it
pays their London rivals. Their re-
ccipts would hardly supply the neces-
sary stamps. But the gift. of a great
mass Of money by single individual
during his lifetime is in England very
rare occurrence. Mr.. Peabody was an
American, and We can recall no other
gift Of quarter Of million, though
Sir F. Cresley may have given away in
the aggregate something like that,
The late Duke of Northumberland set
= great example, but his benefactions
were rather continuous than immense
in single instances. One or two cases
Of great expenditure on churches
might be. recorded-Mr. Beresford
Hope must have spent a considerable
fortune in that way-and great coz
cessions have been made to municipali-
ties in the way Of land. Parks have
been given to different cities Of very
considerable value, parks worth often
from G15,000 to 430,O00-a form If
muoi6cence the more crcditable, be-
cause the last thing rich Englishman
likes to part with, is his hold on the
soil.
But enormous gifts are very rare
No great city owner builds an squeduct
at his own expense, or ,edcems town
from taxes, or POUNDS and endovs To-
cal uuiversity, or erects . populaDtreo
theatre, or build = free quay not near
his own property, or does anything on
the s,ale of the old Roman mobiles or the
Princes Of Middle Age Italy. Nobody
has ever given million, or half mil
lion, to anything, aud there are many
who could. Even in the crisis Of the
cotton famine, when mems hearts seem.
ed to be stirred, aud the aggregate Of
subscriptions wis enormous, no one
single gift was large enough to attract
public: attention. Colossal fortunes
have been made in cotton, but except
in the way Of "keeping on" workmen,
which was luot absolutely seli-sacri6c.
log act, the highest sum given by an
individual did not exceed &10,00O.-
Had Lancashire and Liverpool been
owned BY Americans, wo should have
had to record At least . dozen gifts
equal 70 . years income Of each donor
An English milliooaire would think 4
proposal to give away !. years income
4 in = single check the suggestion of in
sanity. There are score Of men in
England who could, if they chose, try
the experiments in tenure so much
needed in. ireland, or commence the
rebuilding of East London, or improve
the cottages Of . county, or turn some
ono of the congeries Of brick huts,
which ve are pleased to call town, in:
to true o,:y, pleasant 70 live in !: and
Il fair 10 see but 10 one will do it. Mea
i with much money keep il.