The Queen's Jubilee Gifts.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 356, 3 April 1889, Page 3

The Queen's Jubilee Gifts.

Mr Labouchere states that the Queen has added a codicil to her will dealing with the Jubilee gifts, the intrinsic value of which is far greater than is generally supposed. I hear confirmation of this statement from another source with very gratifying particulars. Her Majesty, lam told, has, with very few exceptions otherwise bestowed as personal gifts, bequeathed , the whole of this collection to the nation, from which the presents originally came. The treasures, numbering over a thousand articles, have been collected at Windsor, and upon her Majesty's death will be transferred to a public institution — probably the South Kensington Museum — to.be open for all time to gratuitous inspection. The idea is a very happy one, and will be a triumphant and convincing answer to the' criticisims uttered in some quarters at the time the collection was being made — animadversions which broadly hinted at a disposition to make the most of the oppor- , tunity of acquiring a valuable collection of what Mr Wemmick used to call ', portable property.' With some variation of procedure, there are two recent precedents for the ) gracious and generous act contemplated by the Queen. Since her Ju,bilee the ' Pope has had his, and the Emperor of Austria his, The Pope, after receipt of a vast number of gifts, redistributed them among the people in the shape of donations to churches, hospitals, and other charitable institutions. The Emperor declined to accept anything for his personal use, and his J übilee gifts were straightway diverted for,-, the benefit of the poor and suffering. No one will grudge her Majesty the private I possession of her Jubilee treasures during the term of her life, in anticipation of then Royal largess contemplated. , . , .;