The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-11-18
the LATE LORD snArrEsBuaY.


On the afternoon of the 1st of
October, 1885, passed away that
most eminent social reformer of the
present century, Anthony Ashley
Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, aged
"a years and five months. He died
at Folkestone, England, in the pres
ence of several members of his
family, and his last moments are
reported to have been of the most
peaceful character.
As the late Lord Shaftesbury had
acquired worldwide fame as q
philanthropist, it is our duty as
journalists to make more than a
passing notice of the deceased. To
quote from the London Times
''He is the most conspicuous re-
cent instance of a man who, born to
great station and ample fortune,
has deliberately devoted long life
neither to pleasure, nor to personal
advancement, nor to political power,
but to furthering the material, mo-
raj, and religious well-being of his
countrymen. The tenacity, indeed,
with which he held to his rather
narrow theological opinions, and the
excessive asperity with which he
sometimes spoke of those who diff
fer ed from him, tended to limit the
number of those who were in COM
plete sympathy with him. But in
the main this narrowness was easily
forgiven, when men regarded his
life as a whole, and considered how
great and how real had been his
practical services. Though he was
perhaps not quite so prominent q
figure of late as he had been twenty
or thirty years ago, LORD SHArTEs-
BURY worked almost to the end, and
may be said to have died in harness.
His health had long been feeble,
but lie continued to do what he
could-and it was not little-to
further the philanthropic and re-
ligious objects to which his life had
been devoted. 1t is no more than
eighteen months since he delivered
in the House of Lords the remark
able speech which contributed so
much to the issuing of the Royal
Commission on the Housing of the
Poor. He was active till quite
lately in the work of the Lunacy
Commissioners, of whom he was the
chief. Through last season he still
attended, though, of course, not so
regularly as of old, the meetings Of
the innumerable societies of which
he was president or vice-president.
Moreover, the number of more
private demands upon his time for
benevolent purposes was endless |;
and some of these were of the most
exhausting kind. Till the very end
he would not give up the chance Of
doing what he believed to be useful
work. At last, at the age of "a, he
has succumbed to the complication
of maladies from which he was long
q sufferer. He will be deeply and
widely mourned. 1t is fitting that,
to man who did so much for his
fellow-men as Lord Shaftesbury did,
and who filled SO large a place in
the life of his time, the highest
funeral honors should be paid, and
we are glad to learn that these have
been already offered by the Dean Of
Westminster. Among the hundreds
of illustrious dead who lie in the
Abbey none has better claim than
Lord Shaftesbury to lie in tina,
hallowed resting-place."
The life of this man might b.
emulated by many on these Islands
with beneficial results both to thu
native and foreign populations. HI
was practical philanthropist and {
religious man. His main efforts
were to raise the condition, es
pecially the moral condition of the
poorest of the poor, at the same
time he succeeded in effecting an
immense sanitary reform. He pos
sessed boundless energy and the
list Of his good works is innumer-
able. His death is looked upon as
national loss, and, in respect ia
the religious and philsnthropic So
cieties Of London, truly irreparable.