The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-11

SSlll Oil lISll NiS iIJOlClllSJ dHu Illc happy bride receives her three hun dred dollars, but If the man is unwor- thy and the beneficiary marries him against the wish of the trustees she forfeits her marriage dot. Here, how ever, the natural kindness of Oliver Smith asserted itself and made him add the provision that In case the will full girl was i'll or in great distress part or the whole of her original three hun | dred dollars should be paid to her with compound interest. Only one case of the kind is on record, of a woman in California, who at sixty applied to the Smith charities for twelve hundred | dollars, her three hundred dollars plus compound interest for forty-two years. She got about six hundred dol lars. Then the trustees, by judicious | inquiries, found that she was able to support herself again and refused fur ther payment.
 Girls bound under the will who do not marry, in case of accident or ill., ness, are entitled to 0 part or the whole of the three hundred dollars with compound interest from the time they are eighteen. But these sums must be deducted from their dowry if they are married later. One girl in a little hill town near Northampton, who is dying of consumption, has been spared anxiety and the humiliation of coming upon charity in her last illness by this merciful provision of the will l Girls bound under the will who marry | before they are eighteen forfeit all their rights.
 Indigent boys to be beneficiaries must be at least twelve years old and not over eighteen. Like the girls, | they must be sound. mentally, moral l ly and physically. They must be bound out in "good and respectable | families, where they will receive a good common school education" and will be taught farming or some me- chanical trade or employment Ar | engagements for wages to apprentices, | both boys and girls, are made between master and guardian, and are entirely | independent of the sum given by the Smith charities. The foresight of Ol- iver Smith was remarkable and the wisdom he showed unusual. Very lit | tie of his plan needs to be modified to- | day, fifty-three years after his death, but the changed economic conditions he could not anticipate. In his time boys became apprentices, journeymen and masters. They took an artistic delight in making the whole of the | thing, and the desire for greater ease and expedition, which keeps work man cutting eyelets, for example, all his life for innumerable shoes, would | &o rrI, Nf p1 1 together incomprehensible, perhaps pitiful Now the term apprentice is almost obsolete and it is necessary for the trustees to follow the spirit of the will In this instance rather than it's letter.
 The boys bound under the will are scattered all around among the towns near Northampton and they represent almost all trades. Some will be farm CTS, teamsters and shoemakers. Oth- CTS in the Haydnville brass shop, where there are two or three hundred employees, are looking forward to hav- ing shops of their own, and several are doing delicate and expert work in the silver shop at Greenfield, Mass, I where forty or fifty are employed. The wages of the boys are varia- ble quantity, according to the value and usefulness of the candidate. l Some receive only ten dollars a month, some as much as one dollar and half a day. One boy who receives two dol lars day for electrotyping stands at the top of the financial list. If a boy | serves faithfully and we'll until he is twenty-one, he receives a loan of five hundred dollars from the Smith char ities for a period not exceeding five years. The usual time is two or three years. He must then furnish good se- curity for the repayment of the sum at the expiration of the term, with the annual interest on it. As general thing the boys put their money in the savings bank and leave their bank book with the clerk of the Smith char ities as security, At the end of their term, if they have paid their interest l promptly, the five hundred dollars is given to them without further condi- tions.
 A bride with three hundred dollars to her credit and bridegroom with five hundred dollars and the wages oi his apprenticeship have often beer launched happily into the married state as a result of this will. Industry and all the moral virtues," after five or six years of practice, have become at least partial habit, tiny home is possible as a reward, and with suct an outfit a couple would be unnatura
 indeed who could not find a large
 measure of satisfaction in their exist.
 ence. Human nature is as curious
 and unaccountable in these boys as anywhere else, and it takes wise heads and ready wit sometimes to arbitratt
 between them and their masters
 The girls are less troublesome, though
 more obstinate.
 But if you should stand our boy.
 up in line along the street." said Mir
 Clark, the clerk of the Smith charities
 with paternal gleam of pride in hi:
 eye, you would find them a pretty
 likely set, and if you could see then
 when they first come to us, and agair
 when they take up their loan, the diff
 ference would demonstrate to you tn,
 value of these charities better thar
 anything could say"
 Two or three months ago a boy wht
 had been through all the preliminarie
 received his five hundred dollars clea
 on Saturday. On Sunday he mar
 ried the young woman of his choice