THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2582, 26 April 1887, Page 2

THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.

Neither the official reports of progress made in the establishment ot the Imperial Institute nor the lists of subscriptions published are precisely brilliant, Sinco the mcetiug at the Mansion House, it seoms, no fewer than 3,000 mayors, lord-lieutenants, , chairmen of local boards, and Government officials have been solemnly adjured 111 tlie Prince of Wales' sacred name to bet;, borrow, or procure somehow 'liberal subscriptions.' The . result to date is £50,000 or (as an eveng paper remarks) not half as much as could be raised in a week in London alone for any object that really compelled the sympathy of all classes, Moreover, the greater part of this money has only been obtained by abject begging and a system of onforced subscriptions that would do credit to an American politician squeezing the Civil Service. Great dissatisfaction continues to be experienced at the barefaced manner in which the touting, 'for funds for the Imperial Institute is being carried-on. The heads of Government offices, superinteiidants of the dock yards, commandant at the Woolwich Arsenal, etc. etc,, have been instructed to convene meetings of officers and leading men, in order'that collectors may be appointed to canvass for subscriptions. As the names of all subscribers will be published, and those who refuse give groat offence, this enmes very neat to saying " Your m way or your—place 1" The ' World' would not bo surprised to see the Imperial Institute scheme suddenly abandoned,

Tho Jubilee disease of presenting school children with testaments bearing forgeries of the Queen's signature on their fly-leaves is spreading, It germinated (according lo 'Modern Socibty') in Australia, Perhaps this is why a well known Anglo-colonist bus taken it badly. He intends, it seems, to present testaments thus spuriously decorated to all the children in his county, some 20,000 or 30,000 in all. " Verily," says an ill-natured critic, "it is good for a man to distribute 20,000 testaments in lu's Queen's name, and he shall have las reward. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven and the Order of Michael and George," -London correspondent Duned in Star.