Year: 1875

James Palmer, druggist, whose will was


admitted to probate in PHILADELPHIA re-


Gently, had word to say to posterity worth


the hearing. His property is to be invested


IN that city, and part of the interest de-


voted to the support of his wife and father


during their lives another share is to be


appropriated to buying coal for the poor


curing the Winter months, and the re.


malnder $50 per cent? added each year to


the capital When this capital shall reach


the sum of 100000, 40 per cent of the


interest shall be given to the coal fund :.


when the capital shall reach the sum of


SI,OOO,OO0, the whole of the interest shall


be expended in that charity. At this


period, and not before, he wishes "a plain


stone erected over his unmarked grave. or


over the dust that was once so Industrious


to teach lesson to others to be industrious


and frugal, and to live for their fellow-men


rather than themselves.


Shrcwd people will say that James Pal


mer builds too securely on posterity. They
assert that, judging by the ordinary fate
OF benevolent bequests and their testators.
long before his money will have swelled
into the desired million no human hoing
will know where his industrious dust is


buried III its unmarked grave and his gift
OF coal will be very likely merged into gas
or crude oil company, drawing enormous
dividends-for the trustees. There is not
a town which has not its story to tell of
some whimsical or benevolent citizen. lone
ago, who spent years dcvising means bv
which his money should serve to keep his
memory green when he was dead. and of
how, ninety times in the hundred dis.
honest trustees, or the law. or common
sense interfcred and diverted the money
back into the ordinary currents of trade.
The practical man of business will ask us
what, even if the Palmer Coal Charity
should be miraculously defended from
fraud, will the man who saved the money
day after day among his pills and pellets be
to the shivering paupers gathered about |
the fires? Nothing, according to every
day experience, but name-the coolest of
tar-oH ghosts. 1t is a curious fact that as
soon as any mode of almsgiving is legalized
and made permanent, it is received by those |
whom it benefits as a right, and the senti-
ment of gratitude disappears from the
matter.


Yet in spite of all these hard facts and
rational discouragement, there is something
which strikes us as thoroughly genuine and
true in this mans fancy of the remem.
brancer of himself which he should
leave in the world. A tomb of granite and
marble only saddens and chills the air for
years, to crumble away and mingle with
the forgotten dust of the body below en-.
dow college or school and i'm ten wears
Just such ideas will be taught in it as Won
would least approve; endow an asylum.
and just such hobbies will be carried out in
1t as you detest found library, and half
the books molder on the shelves; pictures
VIII tade, and houses fall out of renoir
But there can be no mistake about roor;no
hres kindled every year on the cold heartbs
OF the widow and orphan. 1t matters very
little whether stone, plain or otherwise.
be erected half century from now to
testify to the virtues of James Palmer, if he
can write his name in such letters of fire ON
the years to come. If spirits ever come
back to earth, James Palmer's hospitable
soul will visit on Winter nights many a
warm fireside where his name is spoken as
that of the best of friends, and in some
unseen way take hearty share in
all the comfort and frolic and good cheer
which he has broughtto the widow and
the orphan. Death itself, we fancy, did
not meet such man with his usual chilly
but held out warm hand TO him,
and babe him 60 on his own bountiful way.
~ y. Tribune


All honest men will bear watching 1t
IS the rascals who cannot stand il.