Dr. F. W. Cumming left six hundred pounds to the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, to provide poor patients, male and female, with snuff and tobacco, giving the following reason for his unusual bequest: “I know how to feel for the suffering of those, who in addition to the irksomeness of pain and the tedium of confinement, have to endure the privation of what long habit has rendered in a great degree a necessity of life.” TO TOLL THE BELL William Minta, of Great Gonerby, Lincolnshire, who died 8th of June, 1724, gave £5 to the poor of Gonerby, to be distributed in bread to sixteen aged people, on Good Friday, yearly, a “threepenny dole a piece,” and the clerk was “to toll the bell at three o’clock, and to read the Epistle and Gospel, and sing the Lamentation of a Sinner,” and to have one shilling reward. CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES William Taylor, of Shropshire, England, by will, dated 6th of February, 1735, directed that Elizabeth Leigh, then owner, and the persons who subsequently should be owners of his two freehold houses, &c., situate in High Street, in the parish of St. Leonard, should yearly, for ever, on the 26th of December, give and provide a good and wholesome dinner for the poor persons, almshouse women, inhabiting the almshouse belonging to the parish of St. Leonard, in such manner as of late years has been provided for them on that day by the testator and his late brother; and they to be so entertained in the most convenient part of the house that fronted the street; and upon every default his Will was, and he ordered the sum of £10 to be paid to, and equally divided amongst, such poor persons, and the same to be chargeable upon the said houses, &c. GRATITUDE FOR BEING PRESERVED IN A BATTLE Ezekiel Nash, an Englishman, of Bristol, St. James’, for a memorial of his thankfulness to Almighty God for his wonderful preservation in an engagement with a French frigate, March the 8th, 1762, gave by will, dated 27th of March, 1800, the sum of £100, to the churchwardens and overseers for the time being of such parish as he should be buried in, upon trust, to invest the same and apply the interest annually in manner following, viz., to the minister of the same parish, for preaching a sermon yearly, on the 8th of March, forever, one guinea; to the clerk and sexton for their attendance, 5_s._ each; the residue in the purchase of bread, to be distributed on the 8th of March, and the six Sundays next following, among such poor persons of the parish whom the minister, churchwardens and overseers should think fit objects to receive the same, not receiving alms or other charity. THE GRATITUDE OF A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT