MEMORANDUM AND STATUTES OF THE COMPANY OF ST. GEORGE.
The Company is constituted with the object of determining and instituting in practice the wholesome laws of agricultural life and economy and of instructing the agricultural labourer in the science art and literature of good husbandry. (a) With this object it is proposed to acquire by gift purchase or otherwise plots or tracts of land in different parts of the country which will be brought into such state of cultivation or left uncultivated or turned into waste or common land and applied to such purposes as having regard to the nature of the soil and other surrounding circumstances may in each case be thought to be most generally useful.
The members of the Company shall be styled Companions of the Company of St. George (b) Any person may become a Companion by subscribing not less than £ in money to the funds of the Company or by making a gift to the Company of land not less than £ in value (c) and by having his name entered on the Roll of Companions with due solemnity.
The name of every Companion shall be entered on the Roll of Companions either by himself in the presence of two witnesses of full age who shall attest such entry or if the Companion shall so desire by the Master of the Company with the same formalities. The Roll of Companions shall be kept in safe custody within the walls of the College of Corpus Christi in Oxford or at such other safe and commodious place as the Companions shall from time to time direct.
Each Companion shall by virtue of the entry of his name on the Roll be deemed to have bound himself by a solemn vow and promise as strict as if the same had been ratified by oath to be true and loyal to the Company and to the best of his power and might so far as in him lies to forward and advance the [207]objects and interests thereof and faithfully to keep and obey the statutes and rules thereof yet so nevertheless that he shall not be bound in any way to harass annoy injure or inconvenience his neighbour.
Chief among the Companions of the Company shall be the Master thereof who so long as he shall hold office shall have full and absolute power at his will and pleasure to make and repeal laws and byelaws (d) and in all respects to rule regulate manage and direct the affairs of the Company and receive apply and administer funds and subscriptions in aid of its objects and to purchase acquire cultivate manage lease sell or otherwise dispose of the estates and properties of the Company and generally direct and control the operations thereof.
The Master shall be elected and may from time to time and at any time be deposed by the votes of a majority in number of the Companions in General Meeting assembled but except in the event of his resignation or deposition shall hold office for life. The first Master of the Company shall be John Ruskin who shall however (subject to re-election) only hold office until the first General Meeting of the Companions.
The Master shall render to each Companion and shall be at liberty if he shall so think fit to print for public circulation a monthly report and account of the operations and financial position of the Company.
No Master or other Companion of the Company shall either directly or indirectly receive any pay profit emolument or advantage whatsoever from out of by or by means of his office or position as a member of the Company.
The practical supervision and management of the estates and properties of the Company shall subject to the direction and control of the Master be entrusted to and carried out by land agents tenants and labourers who shall be styled Retainers of the Company. [208]
The name of each Retainer in the permanent employ of the Company shall be entered in a Register to be called the Roll of Retainers and to be kept at the same place as the Roll of Companions. Such entry shall be made either by the Retainer himself in the presence of one witness of full age who shall attest the entry or if the Retainer shall so desire by the Master with the same formalities.
No pecuniary liability shall attach to any Retainer of the Company by virtue of his position as such but each Retainer shall by virtue of the entry of his name on the Roll be deemed to have bound himself by a solemn vow and promise as strict as if the same had been ratified by oath to be true and loyal to the Company and faithfully to keep and obey the statutes and rules thereof and the orders and commands of the officers of the Company who from time to time may be set over him.
Each land agent and labourer being a Retainer of the Company shall receive and be paid a fixed salary in return for his services and shall not by perquisites commissions or any other means whatever either directly or indirectly receive or acquire any pay profit emolument or advantages whatever other than such fixed salary from out of or by means of his office or position as a Retainer of the Company.
The rents and profits to be derived from the estates and properties of the Company shall be applied in the first instance in the development of the land (e) and the physical intellectual moral social and religious improvement of the residents thereon in such manner as the Master shall from time to time direct or approve and the surplus rents and profits if any shall be applied in reduction of the amount paid by the tenants in proportion to their respective skill and industry either by a gradual remission of rent towards the close of the tenancy or in such other way as may be thought best but in no case shall the Companions personally derive any rents or profits from the property of the Company. [209]
All land and hereditaments for the time being belonging to the Company shall be conveyed to and vested in any two or more of the Companions whom the Master may from time to time select for the office as Trustees of the Company and shall be dealt with by them according to the directions of the Master. (f)
The property of the Company shall belong to the Companions in the shares and proportions in which they shall have respectively contributed or by succession or accruer become entitled to the same.
Each Companion shall be entitled by writing under his hand during his lifetime or by will or codicil to appoint one person as his successor in the Company and such person shall on entry of his name on the Roll of Companions in compliance with the formalities hereinbefore prescribed become a Companion of the Company and become entitled to the share of his appointor in the property of the Company. (g)
Each Companion shall at any time be entitled to resign his position by giving to the Master a Notice under his hand of his desire and intention so to do.
If any Companion shall resign his position or die without having appointed a successor or if the person so appointed shall for calendar months after the date when notice of such resignation shall have been received by the Master or after the date of such death as the case may be fail to have his name entered on the Roll of Companions in compliance with the formalities hereinbefore prescribed his share in the property of the Company shall forthwith become forfeited and shall accrue to the other Companions in the shares and proportions in which they shall inter se be for the time being entitled to the property of the Company. (h)
The Company may at any time be dissolved by the Votes of three-fourths of the Companions in General Meeting assembled and in the event of the Company being so dissolved or being [210]dissolved by any other means not hereinbefore specially provided for the property of the Company shall subject to the debts liabilities and engagements thereof become divisible among the Companions for the time being in the shares and proportions in which they shall for the time being be entitled thereto yet so nevertheless that all leases agreements for leases and other tenancies for the time being subsisting on the property of the Company shall bind the persons among whom the property comprised therein shall so become divisible and shall continue as valid and effectual to all intents and purposes as if the Company had not been dissolved.
Notes on the above Memorandum.
(a) This sentence must be changed into: “such science art and literature as are properly connected with husbandry.”
(b) In my sketch, I wrote Companions of St. George. But as the existence of St. George cannot be legally proved or assumed, the tautologically legal phrase must be permitted.
(c) This clause cannot stand. The admission into the Company must not be purchaseable; also many persons capable of giving enthusiastic and wise help as Companions, may be unable to subscribe money. Nothing can be required as a condition of entrance, except the consent of the Master, and signature promising obedience to the laws.
(d) This clause needs much development. For though the Master must be entirely unrestrained in action within the limits of the Laws of the Company, he must not change or add to them without some manner of consultation with the Companions. Even in now founding the Society, I do not venture to write a constitution for it without inviting the help of its existing members; and when once its main laws are agreed upon, they must be inabrogable without the same concurrence of the members which would be necessary to dissolve the Society altogether. [211]
(e) To the development, and enlargement, of the Society’s operations, also.
(f) I do not think the Master should have the power of choosing the Trustees. I was obliged to do so, before any Society was in existence; but the Trustees have to verify the Master’s accounts, and otherwise act as a check upon him. They must not, therefore, be chosen by him.
(g) A questionable clause, which I have not at present time to discuss.
(h) Partly the corollary of (g). The word ‘forfeited’ is morally, if not legally, objectionable. No idea of forfeiture ought to attach to the resolved surrender of transferable claim; or to the accidental inability to discover a fitting successor.
Reserving, therefore, the above clauses for future modification, the rest of the Memorandum fully expresses what seems to me desirable for the first basis of our constitution; and I shall be glad to hear whether any of the present subscribers to St. George’s Fund will join me on these conditions.
II.—I should willingly have printed the letter from which the following extracts are taken, (with comments,) as a ‘Fors’ by itself; but having other matters pressing, must content myself to leave it in the smaller print. The more interesting half of it is still reserved for next month.
“What long years have passed since my eyes first saw the calm sweet scene beyond Wakefield Bridge! I was but a small creature then, and had never been far from my mother’s door. It was a memorable day for me when I toddled a full mile from the shady up-town street where we lived, past strange windows, over unfamiliar flags, to see the big weir and the chapel on the Bridge. Standing on tiptoe, I could just see over the parapet and look down-stream.
“That was my first peep into fair, green England, and destined [212]never to be forgotten. The gray old chapel, the shining water below, the far-winding green banks spangled with buttercups, the grove-clad hills of Heath and Kirkthorpe,—all seemed to pass into my heart for ever.
“There was no railway then, only the Doncaster coach careering over the Bridge with a brave sound of horn; fields and farmsteads stood where the Kirkgate station is; where the twenty black throats of the foundry belch out flame and soot, there were only strawberry grounds and blossoming pear-orchards, among which the throstles and blackbirds were shouting for gladness.
“The chapel lay neglected in a nest of wild willows, and a peaceful cobbler dwelt in it. As I looked at it, Duke Richard and King Edward became living realities to me; the dry bones of Pinnock’s Catechism started suddenly into life. That was the real old chapel of the fifteenth century. Some years after, they ousted the cobbler, pulled down the old stones, restored it, and opened it for ritualistic worship; but the cheap stonework has crumbled away again, and it now looks as ancient as in days of yore. Only, as I remember it, it had a white hoariness: the foundry smoke has made it black at the present day.
“Some of my companions had been farther out in the world than myself. They pointed out the dusky shape of Heath Hall, seen through the thinly-clad elm-trees, and told me how old Lady ——‘s ghost still walked there on stormy nights. Beyond was Kirkthorpe, where the forlorn shapes of the exiled Spanish nuns had been seen flitting about their graves in the churchyard.
“There on the right was the tree-crowned mound of Sandal Castle, which Cromwell had blown down; the dry ditch was full of primroses, they told me; those woods bounded Crofton, famous for its cowslip fields; and in Heath wood you would see the ground white with snowdrops in March.
“I do not think that it is the partiality of a native that makes me think you could hardly find a fairer inland pastoral scene [213]than the one I beheld from Wakefield Bridge the first time I stood there. On the chapel side there was the soft green English landscape, with woods and spires and halls, and the brown sails of boats silently moving among the flowery banks; on the town side there were picturesque traffic and life; the thundering weir, the wide still water beyond, the big dark-red granaries, with balconies and archways to the water, and the lofty white mills grinding out their cheering music.
“But there were no worse shapes than honest, dusty millers’ men, and browned boatmen, decent people; no open vileness and foul language were rampant in our quiet clean town in those days. I can remember how clean the pavement used to look there, and at Doncaster. Both towns are incredibly dirty now. I cannot bear to look at the filthy beslavered causeway, in places where I remember to have never seen anything worse than the big round thunder-drops I used to watch with gleeful interest.
“In those days we were proud of the cleanness and sweet air and gentility of Wakefield. Leeds was then considered rather vulgar, as a factory town, and Bradford was obscure, rough, and wild; but Wakefield prided itself in refined living on moderate means, and cultured people of small income were fond of settling there.
“Market day used to be a great event for us all.
“I wish that you could have seen the handsome farmers’ wives ranged round the church walls, with their baskets of apricots and cream cheese, before reform came, and they swept away my dear old school-house of the seventeenth century, to make an ugly barren desert of a market ground. You might have seen, too, the pretty cottagers’ daughters, with their bunches of lavender and baskets of fruit, or heaps of cowslips and primroses for the wine and vinegar Wakefield housewives prided themselves upon. On certain days they stood to be hired as maid-servants, and were prized in the country round as neat, clean, modest-spoken girls. [214]
“I do not know where they are gone to now,—I suppose to the factories. Anyhow, Wakefield ladies cry out that they must get servants from London, and Stafford, and Wales. So class gets parted from class.
“Things were different then. Well-to-do ladies prided themselves on doing their marketing in person, and kindly feeling and acquaintanceship sprang up between town and country folk. My Wakefield friends nowadays laugh at the idea of going to market. They order everything through the cook, and hardly know their own tradespeople by sight. We used to get delicious butter at tenpence a pound, and such curds and cream-cheese as I never taste now. ‘Cook’ brings in indifferent butter mostly, at near two shillings.
“As for the farmers’ wives, they would not like to be seen with a butter-basket. They mostly send the dairy produce off by rail to people whom they never see, and thus class is more sundered from class every day, even by the very facilities that railways afford. I can remember that the townspeople had simple merry-makings and neighbourly ways that this generation would scorn. Many a pleasant walk we had to the farms and halls that belted the old town; and boating parties on the Calder, and tea-drinkings and dances—mostly extempore,—in the easy fashion of Vicar Primrose’s days.
“But pleasure must be sought farther off now. Our young folks go to London or Paris for their recreation. People seem to have no leisure for being neighbourly, or to get settled in their houses. They seem to be all expecting to make a heap of money, and to be much grander presently, and finally to live in halls and villas, and look down on their early friends.
“But I am sorry for the young people. They run through everything so soon, and have nothing left to hope for or dream of in a few years. They are better dressed than we were, and have more accomplishments; but I cannot help thinking that we young [215]folks were happier in the old times, though shillings were not half so plentiful, and we had only two frocks a year.
“Tradespeople were different, too, in old Wakefield.
“They expected to live with us all their lives; they had high notions of honour as tradesmen, and they and their customers respected each other.
“They prided themselves on the ‘wear’ of their goods. If they had passed upon the housewives a piece of sized calico or shoddy flannel, they would have heard of it for years after.
“Now the richer ladies go to Leeds or Manchester to make purchases; the town tradesmen are soured and jealous. They put up big plate-glass fronts, and send out flaming bills; but one does not know where to get a piece of sound calico or stout linen, well spun and well woven.
“Give me back our dingy old shops where everything was genuine, instead of these glass palaces where we often get pins without points, needles without eyes, and sewing thread sixty yards to the hundred—which I actually heard a young Quaker defend the other day as an allowable trade practice.”
III.—I venture to print the following sentences from “a poor mother’s” letter, that my reply may be more generally intelligible. I wish I could say, useful; but the want of an art-grammar is every day becoming more felt:—
“I am rather ashamed to tell you how young he is (not quite eleven), fearing you will say I have troubled you idly; but I was sincerely anxious to know your views on the training of a boy for some definite sort of art-work, and I have always fancied such training ought to begin very early,—[yes, assuredly,]—also, there are reasons why we must decide early in what direction we shall look out for employment for him.”
(I never would advise any parents to look for employment in art as a means of their children’s support. It is only when [216]the natural bias is quite uncontrollable, that future eminence, and comfort of material circumstances, can be looked for. And when it is uncontrollable, it ceases to be a question whether we should control it. We have only to guide it.)
“But I seem to dread the results of letting him run idle until he is fourteen or fifteen years old—[most wisely]—and a poor and busy mother like me has not time to superintend the employment of a boy as a richer one might. This makes me long to put him to work under a master early. As he does so little at book-learning, would the practical learning of stone-cutting under the village stonemason (a good man) be likely to lead to anything further?”
I do not know, but it would be of the greatest service to the boy meanwhile. Let him learn good joiners’ work also, and to plough, with time allowed him for drawing. I feel more and more the need of a useful grammar of art for young people, and simple elementary teaching in public schools. I have always hoped to remedy this want, but have been hindered hitherto. [217]
1 Moutard—not -arde; but I can’t give better than this English for it. ↑
2 Fate, and the good novelist, thus dismiss poor grandmamma in a passing sentence,—just when we wanted her so much to live a little longer, too! But that is Fors’s way, and Gotthelf knows it. A bad novelist would have made her live to exactly the proper moment, and then die in a most instructive manner, and with pathetic incidents and speeches which would have filled a chapter. ↑
3 This paragraph implies, of course, the existence of all modern abuses,—the story dealing only with the world as it is. ↑
4 A minute Evangelical fragment—dubitable enough. ↑
5 Primarily, because it is untrue. The respect of a child for its parent depends on the parent’s own personal character; and not at all, irrespective of that, on his religious behaviour. Which the practical good sense of the reverend novelist presently admits. ↑
6 We keep the metaphor in the phrase, to ‘give a dressing,’ but the short verb is better. ↑
8 It was unworthy of Gotthelf to spoil his story by this vulgar theatrical catastrophe; and his object (namely, to exhibit the character of Hansli in riches as well as poverty,) does not justify him; for, to be an example to those in his own position, Hansli should have remained in it. We will, however, take what good we can get: several of the points for the sake of which I have translated the whole story, are in this part of it. ↑
10 “Patraque,”—machine out of repair, and useless. ↑
FORS CLAVIGERA.
