Our Corner. JANUARY 1, 1885. Prodigal City Fathers: WHO PAYS FOR THE FATTED CALF? THERE are many City Fathers given to much turtle, wine, cigars, and sundries: prodigal in entertaining, and presenting golden caskets to princes, generals, and statesmen: open-handed City Fathers, who even present themselves with testimonials, gold chains, and badges: generous and gallant City Fathers, who, not at their own expense, give bonbons, boxes, and bracelets to ladies. I propose to try to find out who pays the bill for the lavishness of these City Fathers. They are all honest, honorable City Fathers, who administer justice daily at the Mansion House and Guildhall as mayors and aldermen : pious City Fathers, who drive to church, if not to worship, in great pomp and with splendidly liveried footmen, and who take the chair in the Egyptian Hall at Christian Evidence meetings. As individuals, very many of these men, if only considered as private fathers, have consciences and fair accountings; but it is as City Fathers I wish to sketch them-Corporation Fathers, who grow fat on charity children's portions-Prodigal Fathers who kill and eat the fatted calf belonging to a dead man's herd, of which they ought to be only careful drovers in trust for widows and orphans. In the October issue of this magazine some items were given, chiefly founded on the first volume of the report of the Royal Commission on the City of London Livery Companies. Two more thick volumes are now available to solve the B question raised in the title to the present paper, and from amongst the minor companies a few are taken in alphabetical order of precedence. The Armourer and Braziers' Company has a court of assistants of twenty and a livery of sixty-six, making in all eighty-six members. Its total annual income is £8,086, of which it pretends that only £60 is trust income. In 1879 it spent in fees, salaries, plate, glass, linen, and entertainments £4,090. £7,765 6s. 10d. of the total income is derived from estates which the company claims as its absolute private property, but it declines to say how it came by them. The justification for this claim is that the Company gave £100 to King James I., and received from that pious king authority to appropriate land left for the benefit of the poor in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The poor to-day get £21 8s. 8d. from these lands; the Armourers and Braziers take £7,700. It is out of the provision intended by Dame Elizabeth Morrys, Roger Tyndal, Gawen Helme, and others for the poor widows and orphans of real armourers and braziers that these prodigal City Fathers get their fatted calf. As Armourers and Braziers they ought to search and approve "all edge-tools and armour and all copper and brass work wrought with the hammer within the City of London and within five miles thereof". Since the end of the last century they have done nothing of the kind. They have confined themselves to the work of mastication. This Company has given, in 1878, 1879, and 1880, five hundred guineas each year for technical education. Before 1876, there being yet no great public outcry, the Armourers and Braziers, moved only by their own spirit of generosity, gave nothing. The Fathers of the Carpenters' Company, by their own confession, have neither "duty nor discretion"; but the Company has an annual income of £11,318, of which they claim all but £940 as private property. Some of the property was left by Thomas Warham in 1477, that twenty shillings per year might be paid to the poor; some was left in 1857 by Thomas Gittins to pay three poor freemen 3s. 8d. each. The Carpenters only spend £3,387 17s. 3d. per year in salaries, fees, and entertainments, and, with charming modesty, they declare that they have not any duty or discretion to encourage in any way any art, trade, or business". These most undutiful Carpenters should be taught discretion. The Cooks' Company has an annual income of £2,559, of which it only admits £180 to be trust income, and it spends in feeding alone £1,121 18s. 8d., and £700 in salaries and fees, devoting the enormous sum of £40 4s. to technical education, and £145 2s. 6d. to works of charity. Prior to 1877 the Cooks' Company contributed nothing towards technical education, except £15 158. donation to the School of Cookery. The Cooks "are under the solemn obligation of an oath not to disclose anything which may tend to the prejudice or injury of the mistery". The Curriers' Company have £1,295 a year, of which only £50 is trust income; for though £1,130 is derived from property chiefly given them 368 years ago, the deeds as to £1,000 annually being destroyed, the Company generously give themselves the benefit of any possible doubt, and in 1878 spent £720 in salaries, fees and feeding. This Company has the duty of exercising supervision and correction over all curriers in London, the suburbs, and within three miles thereof, but the Company has no knowledge of the circumstances under which these powers fell into desuetude"; but as in 1597 it seems that "the journeymen free of the said Company are altogether dead of the late plague" it is possible it happened about that time. The Cutlers' Company, to which brief reference was made in the October article, is a good specimen of how prodigal City Fathers eat fatted calf fed on grass land left for orphans and widows. Its admitted annual income is £5,387, of which it is declared that £50 only is received in trust. All the rest is, these Cutlers say, their own absolute property, acquired some of it 467 years ago, some of it 430 years ago, some of it 378 years ago. For example, John Craythorne gave for the poor about 300 years ago property then worth some £20 or so a year, charged to pay £19 13s. 4d., nearly all poor John Craythorne thought it worth; the Cutlers still pay the £19 13s. 4d., though the property to-day has a rateable annual value of £3,400, and admittedly brings in £1,200. In salaries, court fees, and entertainments these Cutlers spent in 1879 about £3,500; their drink bill, in excess of their tavern bill, being £362 12s. Od. The Cutlers give £169 5s. 6d. to technical education, and £80 for exhibitions at Oxford and Cambridge. Prior to 1877 they gave nothing to technical education, though since the outcry against City Companies they "fully recognise" its "great importance". The Company have great powers for hindering "false or deceitful work or workmanship" in |