PENSIONS.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 419, 15 October 1875, Page 4

PENSIONS.

Probably few people are aware of the large amount annually paid by the Government of England in the shape of pensions. Last year’s Parliamentary paper on the subject has j ust been issued. It consists of eightyfour folio pages, and is styled ‘‘ An account of all allowances or compensations granted as retired allowances or superannuations in all public offices and departments which remained payable on January Ist, 1874, the annual amount which was granted in the year 1874, the amount which ceased within that year, and the total amount remaining payable on December 31st, 1874.” From its contents it appears that this last item, the actual amount paid at the close of last year, reached the large total of £1,080,715. In each of four departments—the War Office, the Customs, the Inland Revenue, and the Post Office —the figures exceeded £10i),000, while in the Admiralty they amounted to £98,939. Several very liberal pensions ceased in 1875, owing to the death of their re cipients. Among the largest of these was a Eension of £I3OO to the late Hon G. Jerningam, Minister at Stockholm ; one of £IBOO to the late Mr Maclean, Secretary to the Customs ; one of £1541 to Sir Denis Le Marchant, Clerk to the House of Commons ; one of £llOO to the late Mr Abrahall, Commissioner of Bankruptcy ; one of £2500 to the late Sir A. G. Spearman, Controller of the National Debt; and last, but not h ast, one of £7352 to that leviathan pensioner, the late Rev T. Thurlow, Patentee of Bankrupts. The common belief in the curious longevity of pensioners will, perhaps, receive fresh support from the fact that we are still paying £7OO a year in pensions to the household of the Princess Charlotte, who died no less than fifty-eight years ago.