The ni quities of the church for the superannuation, in such cases, of what we may call the dying clergy, while she has her thousands a-year to squander on rosy deans. But the Dean of Chester holds also the rectory of Dodlestow, income £620 a-year, according to the blue book, and conferred on him by his friends the dean and four canons. Now, this seems to us not only eating his own share of £1000 a-year, but taking the bread out of the mouth of some brother clergyman who would be thankful to Providence for either, and think himself lucky too. Is this also to be part of our model? Common report represents the possessor as amiable, affable, urbane, hospitable, and adding lustre to his office (and in truth it requires some lustre); but all these honourable qualities, while they dignify the individual, fail to justify the abuse. St. Paul himself, if he were dean, could not justify it, with the vision before his mind of widows and orphans and destitute clergy scattered through the land. But St. Paul has left his opinion on record, "that if any man would not work, neither should he eat;" and so far from grasping at two livings, "these hands (saith he) have ministered to my necessities." We cannot but exclaim, in the words of a modern divine who has placed them on record: "these pluralities are the bane erpetrated of our church;" and, we would add, quite akin to the raking-up the ashes of a pauper twenty-five years in his grave for thirty pieces of copper. by s con Lection with the State. If these things be done in the light of day, they must be rebuked in the light of day; and if we are to have no higher standard of reform than this model of sinecure deaneries with pluralities, for our own part we shrink not a moment from adopting, as a more desirable alternative, the formula of the Roman senator-delenda est Carthago*- and for Carthago reading Cathedral. (To be continued.) THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD "A MODEL TO PARLIAMENT AND THE NATION” SAUL among the prophets,-Diogenes enrolled in the bevy of Alexander's parasites. Widely as such positions might be at variance with what it is now the fashion to call their antecedents. * Carthage penst be destroyed they would have been less out of place and character thau we may seem to be in becoming court apologists, and describing, even hypothetically, the Royal Household as "a Model to Parliament and the Nation." But our design in adopting such a title for our object is wholly different,―our object being quite of another kind. We write of it as a fact to be deplored, and too notorious to be denied, that in wasteful extravagance-in useless, but most expensive offices,-in salaries out of all proportion with the services rendered,-in sinecures to which no actual duties are attached,-in compensations for the loss of places which ought never to have been held, or which, being necessary and adequately filled, have been given up to make room for other occupants,in plurality of offices held by the same individuals, in all that marks the prodigal's progress, the Royal Household has been, and is, practically, the model on which similar abuses have been established in every department of the State, a standing palliation for them all, a constant bad example, acting first upon great ones of the land, and, through them, influencing all classes, down almost to the very lowest in the social scale. When disease pervades the head, what more natural and inevitable than that body and members should also be affected? Under such circumstances, what more idle than to leave the chief evil untouched, and palter with palliatives for symptoms only, unless it were an attempt to purify a stream fetid at its source? We are well aware that in speaking thus broadly and plainly, we incur the risk of being charged with disloyalty to the Sovereign, and disaffection to the crown; but we disclaim any such feeling towards either. We respect the Queen, both as a woman and a sovereign, because in her private character she is an exemplar of all the domestic virtues, whilst in her public capacity she exhibits qualities befitting her high station, and is unstained by any one of the vices which have disgraced so many of her predecessors. We know that, if she is in any degree implicated in the system which we condemn, it is either unwittingly or unwillingly; and we are convinced that in secking to reform that system, to abolish abuses of which she is but made the pretext and instrument, and to render the ROYAL HOUSEHOLD that which it ought to be,—a model to be followed instead of a beacon of warning to be avoided,-we are performing the part both of good citizens and loyal subjects. Those are the real enemies of royalty who, with exuberant professions of love and veneration on their lips, seek only their own benefit and that of the class to which they belong; who under pretence of standing by the crown, defend, multiply, and perpetuate abuses calculated to bring both the throne and its occupant into discredit with the people. As earnest advocates of all measures of economy consistent with the due efficiency of the public service,-as uncompromising enemies to the rotten system of exorbitant salaries, sinecure places, unearned pensions, and undeserved "retired allowances," we feel convinced that no such measures can be effectual or permanently successful whilst the example of all these evils is set by the crown itself,- whilst sinecurists, pluralists, and all other persons in receipt of public money without rendering adequate public service for it, can point to the first subject of the crown, and adduce his conduct in these matters, as an excuse, if not a justification, for their own. As supporters of a constitutional monarchy, and as faithful subjects of the royal lady who now so worthily occupies the throne, we protest against a system which, upheld under the false pretence of maintaining the honour and dignity of the crown and contributing to the comfort and happiness of the sovereign, is not conducive to any one of those purposes, but inimical to them all, and only advantageous to a grasping, and insatiable oligarchy, seeking its own ends exclusively, in utter disregard of the true interests of both crown and people. Much has been written upon the abuses connected with the ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, and also to the habits of lavish and wasteful expenditure contracted during the war as never having been entirely abandoned after the conclusion of peace; to the vigorous and partially successful efforts to economise made during a portion of the reign of William IV. under the pressure of a strong and general national demand for retrenchment; and to the relapse into evil courses (public attention having been directed to other matters) which caused the expenditure of the year 1848 to exceed by one half that of 1835. It was then the reformers again began to arouse themselves and to urge the necessity of a reduction of the national expenditure, by a diminution of the enormous armaments by land and sea, maintained on a war footing in time of peace, and the extinction of all sinecures, unmerited pensions, and other unearned, and therefore unjust and dishonourable, payments; of entirely revising the system of taxation, and of making timely provision for a gradual lightening of the The dignity Crown to bo maintained at £200,000 of that millstone on the country's neck, the national debt. As In the way of preface, we may state that for many of the details contained in the following sections we are indebted to an excellent little work, entitled, Sketches of her Majesty's Household, we have also had occasion to consult Dodd's Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, Hart's Army List, the official Finance Accounts, and other publications, in order, as far as possible, to avoid all mis-statement, either as to facts or persons, in the following: ARRANGEMENT OF THE PRESENT CIVIL LIST. per annum for the pro sent sove ment of the present Civil List. Shortly after the accession of Queen Victoria, in June 1837, Arrange measures were taken by the ministry and Parliament, as usual at the commencement of a new reign, to make the necessary arrangements for the support of her Majesty and the Royal Household. On the 23rd of November, in that year, it was ordered by the House of Commons "that the accounts of income and expenditure of the Civil List from the 1st January to the 31st of December, 1836, with an estimate of the probable future charge of the Civil List of her Majesty, be referred to a Select Committee of twenty-one members." As a basis for the arrangements to be made, the heads of departments in the Household were required to furnish full particulars of the expenditure in each, during the period specified, that is, in the twelve months preceding the death of the late king. In itself, this would appear to have been a proper and judicious step; but, unfortunately, the information thus obtained seems to have been turned to very little purpose, the result being little more than a decision of the committee, which might have been arrived at without all this parade of investigation,-to wit, that each department should cost, throughout the present reign, pretty nearly what it had cost in the last year of the preceding one; that her Majesty should have the same number of attendants, real and nominal, as her predecessor, paying them at the same rates; and, in short, that Queen Victoria, or others for her, should be enabled to spend quite as much money as King William, and something more, if so disposed. And yet, in the accounts furnished from the different departments, there were many items of an exceptional character, that is, for expenses not likely to be constantly occurring, year after year. For example:-the amount of tradesmen's bills in the Lord Chamberlain's department was £11,898. Just to make even money of it, apparently, the committee awarded £12,000 for this branch of expenditure, although nearly one half of what it cost in 1836 was for expenses which could not be, or at least ought not to be, annual. From the following items, that year would, in fact, appear to have been a furnishing one, in the Royal Household : The committee must, of course, have concluded that her Majesty would annually require nearly £12,000 worth of upholstery and cabinet work, £1000 worth of joinery, £4000 worth of ironmongery and armour, and so on with the rest; otherwise they could hardly have recommended that more than the full amount of all the tradesmen's bills for 1836, in this department, should be provided for every year of her Majesty's life and reign. The same remarks apply to the tradesmen's bills in the department of the Master of the Horse, which, in 1836, amounted to £38,205, and for which, in future, the committee awarded £39,500 annually. Amongst the items were £6208 for liveries. |