Rich men, with the prospect of death before them, are often very much concerned about their money affairs.  If unmarried and without successors, they find a considerable difficulty in knowing what to do with the pile of gold they have gathered together during their lifetime.  They must make a will, and leave it to somebody.  In olden times, rich people left money to pay for masses for their souls.  Perhaps many do so still.  Some founded almshouses; others hospitals.  Money was left for the purpose of distributing doles to poor persons, or to persons of the same name and trade as the deceased.

“These doles,” said the wife of a clergyman in the neighbourhood of London, “are doing an infinite deal of mischief:  they are rapidly pauperising the parish.”  Not long since, the town of Bedford was corrupted and demoralized by the doles and benefactions which rich men had left to the poorer classes.  Give a man money without working for it, and he will soon claim it as a right.  It practically forbids him to exercise forethought, or to provide against the vicissitudes of trade, or the accidents of life.  It not only breaks down the bulwarks of independence, but the outposts of virtue itself.

Large sums of money are left by rich men to found “Charities.”  They wish to do good, but in many cases they do much moral injury.  Their “Charities” are anything but charitable.  They destroy the self-respect of the working-classes, and also of the classes above them.  “We can get this charity for nothing.  We can get medical assistance for nothing.  We can get our children educated for nothing.  Why should we work?  Why should we save?” Such is the idea which charity, so-called, inculcates.  The “Charitable Institution” becomes a genteel poor-house; and the lesson is extensively taught that we can do better by begging than by working.

The bequeathment of Stephen Girard, the wealthy American merchant, was of a different character.  Girard was a native of Bordeaux.  An orphan at an early age, he was put on board a ship as a cabin boy.  He made his first voyage to North America when about ten or twelve years old.  He had little education, and only a limited acquaintance with reading and writing.  He worked hard.  He gradually improved in means so that he was able to set up a store.  Whilst living in Water Street, New York, he fell in love with Polly Luna, the daughter of a caulker.  The father forbade the marriage.  But Girard persevered, and at length he won and married Polly Lum.  It proved a most unfortunate marriage.  His wife had no sympathy with him; and he became cross, snappish, morose.  He took to sea again; and at forty he commanded his own sloop, and was engaged in the coasting trade between New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.