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broad field of battle," yet lacking most of the assistance that men meet with; wanting the goal for which men labor, and kept back by a delicacy of physical and nervous development of which men know nothing. That woman needs this aid is so well-known a fact that it would be idle to attempt to substantiate it. It is scarcely too much to say, that every person has within his or her own knowledge some one or more instances of an educated woman working hard mentally and physically for a remuneration which will not allow of her laying by any provision whatever for illness or old age. But while in fact a transformation of this phase of society is going on (as it most certainly will) very slowly and gradually, the question arises, What can be done to ameliorate the present condition of educated females; aged, unmarried, and without resources as thousands of them are? Let us see what is being done for this class, of whom numbers will yet remain, even if the succeeding generation adopt a wiser course than the present, and ameliorate to the utmost of their power the social condition of industrial women.

First, we have the Governesses Benevolent Institution, an admirable one, but with the means of granting annuities to about two per cent. only of the candidates for such advantage. And we have likewise, not so generally known, yet, in one especial respect, more likely to make its aid acceptable to recipients, the Institution founded by the late Mr. Thomas Deakin, of Sheffield; a prosperous merchant, who towards the close of a long and active life, impressed deeply with the claims of the class of unmarried gentlewomen, bequeathed for their benefit the sum of £3,000, providing that a like sum should be added by donation within two years after his decease. It is scarcely necessary to add that this call was responded to, and the required sum raised by subscription within the time named, and three provisional trustees being appointed, they received from the executors the sum bequeathed by Mr. Deakin, minus the legacy duty of £300, which sum, with that raised by subscription, they at once invested in the purchase of £5,764 17s. three and a quarter per cent. stock. Since that time, farther subscriptions have been received from persons qualifying themselves for governors, as well as smaller sums, and the amount held at the time of the report of January, 1859, by the trustees in three per cent. annuities and on freehold securities, amounted to £8,700. A petition having been presented by the trustees to the Court of Chancery, praying that it might be referred to the Master of the Court to settle a fit and proper scheme for the establishment, government, and regulation of the charity, and for the application and administration of the trust funds, a number of rules, of which the following are a portion, were by the Right Honorable the Master of the Rolls ordered to be those of the Institution.

1. That the name of the Institution shall be, "The Deakin Institution," for granting annuities to unmarried women.

2. That the funds of the Institution shall be invested in govern

ment securities, or other real security, in the names of three trustees, and that all future subscriptions, donations and legacies to the Institution, and all surplus or unapplied income, shall be from time to time invested in like manner.

3. That the annual income only of the funds of the Institution shall be applied in paying the annuities and the other expenses of the Institution, and that the amount of the annuities to be granted shall respectively be not less than fifteen pounds nor more than twenty-five pounds each.

4. That any single woman in reduced or straitened circumstances, not being less than forty years of age, and being of good character, resident in England, who has not been married, and who shall be either "a member of the Church of England, or a Protestant dissenter acknowledging the eternal Godhead of our ever blessed Saviour and Redeemer, and the Glorious Trinity as taught in the said Church of England," shall be qualified to be elected a recipient of an annuity in the terms of the testator's will.

5. That except as hereinafter mentioned, every annuitant shall be entitled to the benefit of her annuity so long as she shall continue unmarried and live chastely, and shall continue a "member of the Church of England" or such Protestant dissenter as before mentioned.

6. That any annuitant who shall have obtained her election by any false representation of her pecuniary circumstances or otherwise, or the improvement of whose pecuniary circumstances subsequently to her election as an annuitant, shall render her in the opinion of the board of management an unsuitable object for the funds of the Institution, or who shall deprive herself of the benefit of her annuity by alienation or otherwise, or attempt so to do, shall cease to be entitled to her annuity, and the same shall be forfeited and revert to the Institution upon and after any resolution of the board of management for that purpose.

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7. That every candidate previous to election shall sign a declaration that she has never been married, and is a "member of the Church of England" or such "Protestant dissenter as before mentioned, and in such form as the board of management shall determine.

9. That Mr. Samuel Scott Deakin, the nephew of the testator, and every present and future donor of fifty pounds at one time, shall be a life governor of the Institution; and the Rev. Thomas Sale, M.A., Vicar of Sheffield, and the Rev. William Mercer, M.A., Incumbent of St. George's Church, Sheffield, shall respectively be governors of the Institution, so long as they shall respectively continue to be such vicar and incumbent respectively; but no future vicar or incumbent, as aforesaid, shall be a governor of the Institution merely by virtue of his office of such vicar or incumbent; and all such governors as aforesaid shall on all occasions when the governors shall have a right of voting, be entitled to one vote, and all

donors of one hundred pounds shall be entitled to two votes, and so on in proportion for every additional fifty pounds donation, but so that no governor shall have more than five votes in the whole; and any person who shall have been a subscriber of five hundred guineas and upwards per annum for three successive years, shall be a governor so long as he shall continue to be such subscriber, and shall be entitled to one vote; and that one of the governors shall be elected and styled the President of the Institution, and two of the governors shall be elected and styled the Vice-presidents of the Institution.

14. That an annual general meeting of the governors shall be held in Sheffield, in the month of October, in every year, at which meeting, or at some adjournment thereof, the election of annuitants and such officers as aforesaid shall take place, and five governors present shall form a quorum.

18. That at all general or special meetings governors may vote by proxy, such proxy to be held by a governor only.

The governors of the Institution held their eighth annual meeting at the Cutlers' Hall, on Wednesday, the 26th October, when the report of the board of management was as follows:

"The eighth annual meeting of the governors finds the Deakin Institution in circumstances of unabated prosperity, whilst the continued liberality of its supporters justifies a hope that the manner in which this board has conducted the business of the Institution has met with the approbation of the general body of governors.

"The permanent capital of the Deakin Institution has been augmented during the past year by donations amounting to £336.

"It will be satisfactory to this meeting to know that during the past twelve months the secretary has had personal interviews with the distant objects of the Deakin bounty, and after a strict inspection of each case, he was able to assure the board of management that the governors had acted wisely in selecting the individuals who have been appointed.

"In the report presented to the sixth annual meeting of this Institution allusion was made to the list of applications containing the name of a person in the actual receipt of parish relief; the same individual is again recommended this year, but with the omission of this circumstance of the parish allowance in the statement of her present condition; the board refer again to the subject, as amongst the informal applications of this year were two recommended by a clergyman in Warwickshire, both of whom were on the parish books; and this board cannot help asking with some impatience, whether it is likely that the governors of the Deakin Institution have subscribed their money to relieve a rural district in Warwickshire of its pauper population?

"The board have to acknowledge an act of liberality by Mrs. Moore, daughter of the late Rev. Thomas Radford, formerly incumbent of St. James's Church, in this town, which deserves the special notice they desire to take of it. Some years back, Mrs. Moore

wrote a small work entitled 'Mary Morton,' for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and she has lately written a second part, 'Mary Morton and her Sister,' for which the Society has sent her fourteen pounds, as an acknowledgment on their part of its value and usefulness.

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Previously, Mrs. Moore had stood as a solitary subscriber of a guinea per annum to the funds of this Institution, but in this year's account she stands as a donor of £10 10s., having generously divided the Society's gift between the Friends of the Clergy Corporation and the Deakin Institution. Such acts need no comment.

"The board desire to express their sense of the great loss which this Institution has sustained by the death of our universally lamented townsman, Mr. John Rodgers, who was one of the warmest and most energetic of its friends, and one of its most munificent supporters. Independently of his great personal influence, it is right that the governors generally should know that Mr. Rodgers caused the reports of this Institution to be placed in the hands of every member of the House of Peers, the bench of Bishops, and the great functionaries of the State, and in this, and many other ways, he has left the Deakin Institution deeply indebted to his generous liberality.

"The board feel the great necessity for urging the governors to use their influence in adding to the funds of the Institution, which must now almost entirely rely on the annual donations for increasing the list of annuitants, and they venture to hope that if the clergy of the town could be induced to bring the claims of this Institution before their respective congregations, a large sum would be raised, and many honored names added to our list of governors; and what, they ask, could be a more graceful and acceptable compliment to offer a pastor than to place in his hands the means of assisting some lady of his congregation in reduced or straitened circumstances?

"In conclusion, the board of management have the pleasure to announce that the appeal made by them to the governors generally in favor of making Mr. Ridge a governor of the Institution, as an acknowledgment of the high value they put upon his services as gratuitous secretary since the foundation of the Institution, has been most liberally responded to, and a sum has been contributed which not only will suffice to make him a governor, but leaves a surplus, which it is proposed Mr. Ridge shall be requested to accept."

At the close of the poll, the chairman declared that a lady residing in London, and a lady residing in Sheffield, had the greatest number of votes, and they were thereupon unanimously elected. We find likewise, from the newspaper report, that the sum of £25 was presented as a thank-offering from a lady on the election of the Sheffield candidate, and that the treasurer's account shows the capital fund of the Institution at the present time to be £9,050, being an increase of £350 since January. The number of annu

itants is now seventeen, of whom four are resident in London, eight in Sheffield, one in Ashton, one in Ripon, one in Barnsley, one in York, and one in Manchester.

The principal and most attractive feature in this Institution is the peculiarity it possesses of extending help to those at a distance from its centre, and this is indeed no light consideration. How many a delicately nerved, sensitive woman shrinks from the publicity of an ordinary charity, the being singled out for the remainder of her life as a recipient of others' bounty! But this Institution demands no sacrifice of feeling, no isolation from kindred. Truly the sum is too small to yield entire support, but how large a proportion of women unfitted by age or partial physical prostration for continued labor, could, with a certainty of £25 per annum, add to it by occasional labor sufficient to maintain them in respectability and comfort. Many, too, could find a home with friends, if the prospect of entire dependance were removed; or two or three women might live together very comfortably on the product of their united annuities.

View it in any light we please, we must consider this Institution an excellent and valuable one, and worthy of all possible support.

I may just state in conclusion, that subscriptions, donations, or legacies, are earnestly requested by the governors, and may be paid to the Sheffield Banking Company, George Street, Sheffield, to Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Smith, Bankers, London, or to the Honorary Secretary, King Street, Sheffield.

VII-SANITARY LECTURES.

As many readers of the ENGLISH WOMAN'S JOURNAL are deeply interested in sanitary reform and in the Ladies' Sanitary Association, it is believed that a part of these pages may be suitably occupied by a few extracts from the Association's fourth course of lectures delivered at the Kensington Museum during the past month. The first lecture, on "Industrial Employments in Girls' Schools," was delivered by the Rev. John Armitstead, Vicar of Sandbach. It contained much practically useful information derived from the lecturer's own experience in his parish schools, where he has introduced the industrial training which he advocates. We give a few passages relating to his plan of working and its results:

"In the establishment of our school kitchen, for instruction in cookery, one difficulty was, want of funds. That difficulty we have met partly by the employment of the alms collected after the sacraThis money is commonly left to the disposal of the clergyman and the churchwardens, in equal parts. In our parish, the churchwardens readily upon application gave up their share of the money, and we threw it at once into one common fund for the

ment.

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