“From a very remote period, the City of London has protected the persons and property of its Orphans; and so early as the year 1391 the Orphans’ Fund was possessed of very considerable wealth, since the sum of 2000 marks, or £1333. 6_s._ 8_d._, was then borrowed from it to procure corn during a dearth. In the year 1693, the City stood indebted to the same source, as well as to other creditors, in the amount of £747,500, and an Act of Parliament was at length procured, establishing a fund for their re-payment; by which all the City estates, excepting those belonging to the Hospitals, London Bridge, and such places as were liable to its repairs, were charged with raising the annual sum of £8000, clear of all deductions, as a perpetual deposit for paying an interest of 4 per cent. to the said creditors. The act itself is in volume iii. of Owen Ruffhead’s ‘_Statutes at Large_,’ London, 1770, 4to., the 5th of William and Mary, 1694, chapter x., section 2. In which year also, during the Mayoralty of Sir William Ashurst, the Common Council passed an Act, on Wednesday the 15th of June, that as the ensuing Midsummer day, the time for delivering the Bridge-House accounts, would fall on a Sunday, for ever after, in such a case, they were to be delivered the next day following. An original copy of which Act is in the xxv.th volume of London Tracts in the British Museum, folio. “I have already mentioned several particulars of the Bridge-House revenues, and the salaries of the Wardens at various periods; and I shall now shew you the ancient estimation of several other offices of the same establishment. In the xxviii.th volume of London Tracts last cited, is a folio sheet, entitled ‘_A List of the Rooms and Offices bought and sold in the City of London_;’ the total amount of which is £145,586; and there occur in it the following valuations of places belonging to the Bridge. ‘1 Clerk of the Bridge House, £1250.--2 Carpenters of the Bridge-House, £200 each.--1 Mason of the Bridge-House, £200.--1 Plasterer to the Bridge-House, £200.--1 Pavier to the Bridge House, £250.--1 Plummer to the Bridge-House, £250.--2 Porters of the Bridge-House, £100 each.--1 Purveyor of the Bridge House, £200.--1 Shotsman of the Bridge-House, £200.’ The whole of this list is also printed in Motley’s ‘_Seymour’s Survey of London_,’ volume i., page 261: and at the end of the original is the following note, more particularly fixing the time when these offices were held in such estimation. ‘Whereas, James Whiston, in a late book, intituled ‘_England’s Calamities Discovered_,’ &c.--London, 1696, quarto,--‘set forth the mischievous consequences of buying and selling places in Cities, States, and Kingdoms: and the discovery of the disease being the first step towards the cure; for that end some persons, well-affected to the government of this City and Kingdom, have taken great pains to find out the number and value of y^e places bought and