On the 30th of August, 1852, there died at Chelsea John Camden Neild, a wealthy gentleman, who had bequeathed an immense legacy to Queen Victoria. His father was a native of Knutsford, in Cheshire; as a goldsmith in London he made a large fortune. He was a truly benevolent man, especially in his efforts for the improvement of prisons, and originated the Society for the Relief of Persons imprisoned for Small Debts. He married the daughter of John Camden, Esq., of Battersea, in Surrey, a direct descendant of the great antiquary of the same name. He died in 1814, and was buried at Chelsea. John Camden Neild, the only surviving son of the above, was born in 1780; educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, studied at Lincoln's Inn, and in 1808 was called to the bar. In 1814 he succeeded to the whole of his father's property, estimated at 250,000_l._; but he made a very different use of his wealth. Avarice was his ruling passion; he became a confirmed miser, and for the last thirty years of his life gave himself over to heaping up riches. He lived in a large but meanly furnished house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea; and he slept on a bare board, and latterly on an old stump bedstead, on which he died. His favourite companion was a large black cat, which was in his chamber when he breathed his last. He had considerable property at North Marston, in Buckinghamshire, and here he often stayed for days together, besides his half-yearly visits to receive rents. As lessee of the rectory, it was incumbent on him to repair the chancel of the church; the leaded roof having become full of fissures, he had them covered with strips of painted calico, saying they would "last his time." During this odd repair, he sat all day on the roof, to keep the workmen employed and even ate his dinner there, which consisted of hard-boiled eggs, dry bread, and buttermilk. His dress was an old-fashioned swallow-tailed coat, brown trousers, short gaiters, and shoes which were generally patched and down at the heels. His stockings and linen were generally full of holes; but when he stayed a night at a tenant's, the mistress often mended them while he was in bed. He was short and punchy in figure, scarcely above five feet in height, with a large round and short neck. He always carried an old green cotton umbrella, but never wore a great coat, which he considered too extravagant for his slender means. He travelled outside a coach, where his fellow-travellers took him for a decayed gentleman in extreme poverty. Once, when visiting his Kentish property on a bitterly cold day, the coach stopped at Farningham, where the other passengers subscribed for a glass of brandy-and-water, which they sent to the poor gentleman, in pity for their thinly-clad companion who still sat on the coach-roof, while they were by the inn fireside.