ich can be procured for money upon the vestry-table; from this the
'officiating priest' strengthens his inner man with a glass or two
before commencing his ministrations, and then the church-wardens sit
down and finish the remainder comfortably by themselves, while the
reverend gentleman is in the reading-desk or the pulpit. The cost of
the wine, however, does not amount to half the sum in their hands, and
the remainder goes to form a fund from which the church is painted,
repaired, decorated, and kept in apple-pie order--the whole fabric
undergoing a thorough revision and polish both outside and in as often
as a pretext can be found. What becomes of the bulk of the
property--the large surplus arising from the increased value of the
devised estate--this deponent sayeth not: the reader may be in a
condition to guess by the time he has read to the end of this paper.

In the year 1565, a Mr Edward Taylor willed to the Leathersellers'
Company a messuage, tenement, and melting-house, in the parish of St
Olave, and other messuages in the same parish, upon condition that
they should, quarterly and for ever, distribute among the poorest and
neediest people in the Poultry Compter one kilderkin of beer and
twelve pennyworths of bread, and the same to the poor of Wood Street
Compter, Newgate, and the Fleet, the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea
prisons. Under this bequest, the Company are at present in possession
of considerable property, vastly increased in value since the date of
the will; in respect of which property, 1s. worth of penny-loaves, and
2s. in money, in lieu of beer, are sent by them every quarter to the
poor prisoners in each of the prisons mentioned in the original
testament!

Robert Rogers devised in 1601 the sum of L.400 to the Leathersellers'
Company, 'to be employed in lands, the best pennyworth they could
get;' and that the house should have 40s. of it a year for ever. The
remainder was to be bestowed upon poor scholars, students of
divinity--two of Oxford, and two of Cambridge, for four years; and
after them to two others of each university; and after them, to
others; and so on for ever. He also, by the same will, devised L.200
to be lent to four young men, merchant adventurers, at L.6, 13s. 4d.,
for the L.200, interest. The whole of the interest was to be spent in
bread--to be distributed among poor prisoners--and coal for poor
persons, with the exception of some small fees and gratuities to the
parish cle