eft, and the gold salver was
deposited in front of the royal pew, generally tenanted by one or more
members of the royal family. Evening prayer, slightly varied and
adapted for the occasion, as custom has decreed for several centuries,
was then gone through; the forty-first Psalm was chanted; and after
the First Lesson an anthem by Goss was sung. Then followed the
distribution of L1 15s. to each woman, and a pair of shoes and
stockings to each man. The two next anthems were by Mendelssohn, and
in the intervals woolen and linen clothes were first distributed to
each man, and money-purses to each man and woman. The Second Lesson
was then read, and the fourth and concluding anthem, by Greene,
chanted, after which the usual Thanksgiving and Prayer of St.
Chrysostom were read. The musical part of the service, being
especially prominent, was correctly and artistically performed by
skillful musicians (some of them composers), styled officially
"gentlemen of the Chapel Royal:" the solo in the first anthem was sung
by one of the boys.

In addition to this special ceremony, other Easter bounties, styled
"Minor Bounty," "Discretionary Bounty," and the "Royal Gate Alms,"
were, according to old custom, distributed at the Almonry Office on
Good Friday and Saturday, while Easter Monday and Tuesday were devoted
to the distribution of other supplementary relief to old and infirm
people previously chosen by the clergy of the various London parishes.
The recipients included over a thousand persons. Among the private
local charities none is on so large a scale as the famous "Tichborne
Dole." The idea we now attach to the word _dole_ is ludicrously
inappropriate in this case, where the gift is in the proportion of one
gallon of the best wheaten flour to each adult and half a gallon to
each child, and where the number of the recipients is generally
between five and six hundred, including the inhabitants of two
parishes. This custom is seven hundred years old, and was first
instituted on the Tichborne estate by Dame Mabel, the wife of Sir
Roger de Tichborne, knight, in the beginning of the twelfth century.
The foundress was renowned for her piety and charity, and by her own
people was looked upon as a saint. The family record says that she was
so charitable to the poor that, not content to exercise that virtue
all her lifetime, she instituted the "dole" as a perpetual memorial of
her goodness, and entailed it to her posterity. It is distrib