streets with gas or electricity, the roads and even busy streets of the cities were dark and treacherous. So we find over a hundred be quests recorded in London alone for provid ing light in the streets. John Cooke, by will, dated September 12, 1662, gave to the church-wardens and vestry of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, London, the sum of £ 76, to be invested " to the best profit and advantage " for various purposes, one of which was : " For the maintenance of a lantern and candle, to be of eight in the pound at the least, to be kept and hanged out at the corner of St. Michael's Lane, next Thames street, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, between the hours of nine and ten o'clock at night, until the hours of four or five in the morning." Six years previously, in 1656, one John Wardell, had bequeathed a sum of money to the Grocers' Company of the city of Lon don, on condition that a lamp with a can dle should be kept lighted at the northeast corner of the parish church of St. Botolph, and that one pound should be paid yearly to the sexton for taking care of the lantern.
Another citizen bequeathed a large sum to be held in trust for the purpose of purchas ing " stout sticks " for the night watchmen in the parish of St. John, Clerkenwell. Up to a few years ago a man dressed in the quaint garb of two centuries ago, used to walk round Spital Square, London, every night, carrying a horn lantern, and a long wand, and at every hour he had to call out the time, with the old fashioned finale " All's Well! " Every evening at sunset he rang a bell and proclaimed the latest news at the corner of the square, though most of the peo ple had read a better account in the latest "extra." But the watchman had to perform the duties because some parishioner, in the year 1 68 1, had bequeathed a sum of money to the parish on condition that the watchman should make his rounds of the square, nightly "forever." The law books are full of such eccentric trusts, some of which survive to this day to the enrichment of the trustees and of classes which the testators never intended to ben efit.
