WOMEN'S CHARITABLE BEQUESTS.
fr HERE are several points of interest in the curious list of
recent bequests published by the Times on Monday, but perhaps the most interesting is the evidence it affords of the superior readiness of women to enrich charities. They have shared with men in the increased wealth of the country— indeed, they have perhaps of the two sexes benefited more owing to the rapidly increasing habit of allowing daughters to share equally with sons—and they are inclined to use much of their new powers to advance philanthropic causes. During the past eight years, out of the ten and a half millions of personalty over which one hundred and fifty ladies have exercised testamentary powers, they have bequeathed no less than 22,696,000 for religions or charitable objects, or more than 25 per cent. Within the same period three hundred and ten men, who left behind them £65,489,000 in cash, distributed only £7,423,000 in charity, or 11± per cent, of the total sum. Women are therefore, if judged by their wills, more than twice as charitable as men, and as they have certainly quite as keen a perception of the value of money—are indeed, owing to their long-continued position as trustees, rather more disposed to thrift—one would like to know the reason of that difference. They are not really more religious, though they are much more amenable to the influence of religious teachers, and more disposed to make their lives conform to the teaching in which they believe. Women have done very little towards the conversion of the world, and, considering their equal opportunities and their delight in didacticism and argument, have contributed strangely little to the supply of theology. Nor should we say that they are as a sex by far the more charitable of the two, at any rate not to the extent of being twice as charitable. They are more moved by the suffering of individuals than of classes, and less inclined to support the great impersonal charities such as hospitals or educational institutions. They have founded, so far as we know, neither Universities nor hospitals for both sexes. Their great bequests, therefore, must be due to other causes, and we fancy the causes are mainly these. They have fewer family claims upon them, the majority of the women who bequeath great sums to charities being rich old maids or wealthy widows who are childless, and they believe more heartily in the good which the societies they favour are able to do. Men are apt to have a lingering doubt in those bodies, and a suspicion, often, we are bound to say, unfounded, that they exist as much for the benefit of their managers as for that of the community. The women trust theta more heartily, and give, when they give, as in drawing up their wills, with a kind of effusion. Men, too, are much more conventional in their disposal of money, thinking, for instance, that relatives whom they care nothing about have greater claims upon them than their closest friends. We have not the means of proving the point by statistics, but we venture to say that if an analysis could be made of the wills of the last thirty years, it would be found that wemen have "provided for" friends five times as often as men have done the same thing. And, lastly, we think that women believe much more strongly in the effect both of laws and of money than men do. They always want the things they disapprove of to be prohibited by law, perhaps from having less regard for individual freedom, and they believe in money as a power for good with a confidence which men are unable to entertain. If only, they think, such and such a society had sufficient funds what a different world it would be, and they are willing, therefore, to give on a large scale. Men shake their heads, and ask whether Churches have been most effective when most loaded with wealth, or whether the greater works of philanthropy, the emancipation of the slaves, for example, or the prohibition of torture, have owed much to the very rich. There was one work of the kind which once greatly attracted the wealthy, the redemption of Christian slaves captured by the Barbary Corsairs ; but we fancy that a feeling more akin to patriotism than to charity entered deeply into those noble efforts, which were aided also by the horror of Churchmen lest Christians should be forced by the unen- durable sufferings of their position to declare themselves con- verts to Mahommedanism, as, indeed, thousands of them must have done.
We wonder sometimes as we read the accounts of charities whether the feminine or the masculine opinion about endow- ments is the more correct. That the great majority of modern charitable associations are most beneficial we have no doubt whatever. Very few of them do positive harm—as, for instance, all foundling hospitals do if really devoted to found- lings—the few useless ones are gradually getting suppressed, and the remainder either remove or lighten an incalculable mass of preventible misery. London would, for example, be a different and a more wretched place but for its hospitals, while the Poor-law would be almost unworkable but for the hundred and one societies which exist for the purpose of distributing benefactions, all of which, taken together, supplement and humanise its action. Take as a single solid example, about which contention is not possible, the different associations which provide the injured poor with trusses or other surgical appliances. Bat while we would earnestly advise all good men and women to support the charitable associations, we doubt whether subscriptions are not more useful to them than bequests or endowments; whether the safe incomes in which their managers exult do not diminish the stream of charity ; whether the temptation when there is much invested money, to improve the institution rather than the position of its beneficiaries, is not overwhelmingly strong. Early missionaries used to say that their societies were strongest when most in debt, and a generation or two ago, when supervision was not as keen as at present, scandals were rife in most wealthy foundations, and even now, though actual corruption may be said to have disappeared, and there is a new horror of robbing the powerless, we suspect the love of perfecting the machine, rather than its outturn, often prevails with those who drive it. The most efficient Army in the world is managed as if its Sovereign would be ruined by the waste of pennies, and we do not feel sure that Prussian penuriousness has not contributed largely to Prussian efficiency. If military expenditure came out of endowments, and the taxpayer were not feared, armies would be rotten from prosperity, and though that example is an extreme one, we cannot but believe that the principle is capable of very wide application. In a society which has nothing but income waste is carefully avoided, every one is forced to do his best, the born administrators who seek no pay are drawn into its service, and the work it is intended to do is actually done with a will. No doubt there is a theoretic risk that the work may some day stop for want of funds, but that is a risk which is run by every great distributing busi- ness, by every newspaper, and by every manufacturing estab- lishment not protected by law from competition. People may cease to drink stout, but for all that shares in Guinness's are almost as valuable as Consols. The unendowed society, moreover, keeps pace with the needs of the hour, while the endowed one is apt to lapse into apathy, and to keep on doing the same things long after their utility has ceased The old Whig prejudice against mortinain had a very solid founda- tion, and so has the more modern belief that riches, whatever their other good effects may be, do not develop industry. We wish, therefore, that the charitable ladies who dispose of such large fortunes would subscribe more and bequeath less, as
we also wish, if they must create endowments, they would remember the two great and beneficial institutions which they always forget, —the two ancient Universities, which probably do more good than any modern societies, and are now falling into something like need. Endowments are good for Uni- versities, because they cannot ask for subscriptions, or raise funds by taxing those whom they are intended to instruct.
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