The GLIO Site

     CAN it be said that his Reverence the Earl of GUILFORD has lately had some twinges of conscience? Or is it to his friends feeling for him that shame to which he himself appears impervious, that we are indebted for a long array of figures in a Hampshire paper as to the receipts and expenditure of the Hospital of St. Cross, whereof his Reverence is Master?

     Possibly, very possibly, the correspondents of the naughty Express have, as alleged, exaggerated the profits of the Mastership of that very useless institution, which, with means to support a university at Winchester, maintains thirteen paupers! But obviously, very obviously, the financial statement of the hospital, put forth by the Earl's friends, is more deceptive than the leakiest accounts of the most suspicious railway issued to uneasy shareholders.

     From this statement it seems that the annual rents of the hospital, on an average, from 1808 to 1836, were 1,088l.; and that the disbursements for the latter year were 914l., leaving a balance of 174l. a year payable on that account to the Master. During the same period of time the amount of fines assessed on the leases of hospital property is stated at 51,558l. Of these fines the Master, it is alleged, is entitled only to about two-thirds; so that from this source the Earl of GUILFORD, in the twenty-eight years that elapsed between 1808 and 1836, became entitled to the very handsome sum of 34,372l. Thirteen years have passed since 1836; and, calculating the receipts in them of the fines at the same rate as in the preceding period, their amount during those thirteen years will, in round numbers, be 18,000l.; of which two-thirds would yield Lord GUILFORD 12,000l. That sum added to the previous 34,372l., would put his Lordship in possession of 46,372l. from fines; and if to it we add the annual profits he has derived during forty-one years from the rents as before stated, which at the rate of 174l. a year will make 7,134l., the receipts of his Reverence the Earl of GUILFORD from St. Cross will, on the showing of his own financiers, stand thus:

     But this is on their own showing; and we have small faith in their figures. Why have they brought the receipts of fines down to 1836 only? Is it because subsequently to that year, as our correspondents have alleged, the fines received have been much greater than they were during the period for which we are thus eagerly furnished with figures? This, however, is a question between our correspondents and the earl's financiers. But that a man should in forty years receive even 53,506l. from a public charity, for doing literally, absolutely nothing, is, in our estimation, and outrage on society, a crime against humanity; which decency alone ought to prevent the repetition of.

     So, in the name of the public, and on behalf of decency, we inquire of the Bishop of WINCHESTER what scheme he has devised to prevent the continuance, after Lord GUILFORD's demise, of this scandal at St Cross? It is time Dr. SUMNER should be thinking about some plan for the better and more useful employment of its revenues, than the maintenance of thirteen paupers and the enrichment of a prelate's son. And this inquiry is the more pressed on Dr. SUMNER's attention because the general expectation of his diocese is, that on the death of Lord GUILFORD, he will follow the bad example set him by Dr. NORTH. Nor can it be said that such apprehensions are unreasonable when it is seen that nepotism does still prevail in the diocese; and that church extension, however strongly recommended to the city, is never allowed to interfere with the ecclesiastical preferment of episcopal sons and sons-in-law.

     Let us state a couple cases in point. The Rev. Lord WALSINGHAM, was rector of Fawley, in Hampshire, worth 1,200l.; in Fawley there is the dependent perpetual curacy of Hythe, value 150l. a year, and the chapelry of Exbury. Before Lord WALSINGHAM's death it was understood that, when a vacancy occurred, the Bishop of WINCHESTER would properly endow the subordinate cures out of the superfluous wealth of the rectory. When, however, the living did become vacant, the Rev. Mr. GIBSON (the Bishop of WINCHESTER's  son-in-law) was presented to the benefice, without any such arrangement having been accomplished; and it is only, we are assured, after the application of urgent "pressure from without" that a paltry 100l. has been appropriated to Hythe, while Exbury has been wholly neglected. 

     So again at Buriton. When that benefice, worth 1,200l. a year also, became vacant, Dr. SUMNER inducted his son to it; and, though the town of Petersfield contains two-thirds of the population, the bishop has allowed it to remain a chapelry dependent on the village of Buriton.

      How, then, is it possible to have the least confidence in what the Bishop of WINCHESTER may do at St. Cross after Lord GUILFORD is taken from a world which has been so profitable to him?