SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. '97
Report by John Clarke
In 1620 Isaac Duckett bequeathed a sum of £400, the interest from which was to be distributed annually for the benefit " of poor Maid Servants (within the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn) who have well and honestly served and demeaned themselves " within the preceding twelve months—and could prove it. A prize of £5 was offered for the terms of a new charitable trust, using Isaac Duckett as a model, to be applied to members of any one trade or profession which was felt, in 1951, to be deserving of such assistance.
This competition was set for the Christmas season and, reading through the entries, I found myself, so loaded were they with malice, venom and acerbity, tempted to speculate upon the circumstances of their composition. Some competitors worked, surely, in homes festooned with double-dannert barbed wire instead of coloured paper, chains, in rooms where poison-ivy took the place of mistletoe and holly.
There was also evidence of a certain amount of nest-feathering. I was heartened, for instance, to see how many competitors made the clergy their beneficiaries—until I happened to notice that such entries almost invariably originated from some vicarage, rectory or manse.
The range of trades and professions considered to be deserving was wider than I had expected it would be, and to my surprise only one competitor (R. Kennard Davis) picked on house-husbands, a group that might be said to be the heirs today of Isaac Duckett's poor maidservants. Others remembered, with varying degrees of testiness, included gardeners and grandmothers, radio comedians and co-respondents, cab-drivers, burglars, waiters, poets and tramps, teachers and landlords.
Some competitors, characteristically, since charity begins at home, spared a generous thought for themselves and their fellows. Thus one (D. R. Peddy) starts his entry : " The wills of Messrs. A. M. Laing and R. Kennard Davis provided for the application of the - interest from the vast fortunes accruing from their literary prize- winnings to a trust for the relief of Destitute Competitors." Among the qualifications he listed were those of having entered for at least 50 literary competitions, won no prizes, at least seven times achieved honourable mention or quotation, and the occasional purchase of • a literary periodical, as against perusal of its competition page in a library reading-room.
Holding, as no doubt Mr. Duckett did, that charity should be so dispensed as to encourage virtues positive enough to do the greatest good to the greatest number, I give and bequeath a first prize of £3 to Frank Dunnill. Prizes of f 1 each to A. Macdonald and Lakon.
FIRST PRIZE
(FRANK DUNNILL)
I DEVISE AND BEQUEATH my residuary estate to THOMAS TANGLEWOOD- TAPER, of "Backwaters," Purfington, Baronet, PETER SHELVIT, of Treasury Chambers, Civil Servant, and MARMADUKE PICKEM-YOUNQ, of Burlington Gardens, Gentleman, UPON TRUST to divide the income thereof annually between such members of the public service as may compose to their satisfaction one hundred words of consecutive prose innocent of the phrases "in this connection," "for your consideration," "it will be within your knowledge that," "you will doubtless appreci- ate " ; the words "penultimate," "adumbrate," "initiate " and all other jargon whatsoever.
PROVIDED THAT, to ensure complete privacy, every award shall be made in some Government Office one minute after five-thirty or. any weekday, it being my intent that no beneficiary under this trust shall be handicapped in his career by the undue advertisement of his ability to write English prose.
SECOND PRIZES (A. MACDONALD)
(Extract from the last Will and Testament of John Playfair, Esq.; President of the Anti-Sweating League.)
Eighth, Whereas it is my desire to mitigate hardship wherever found to exist, I hereby assign to The Governor of the Bank of England, The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Moderator of the Church of Scotland as trustees for the purposes aftermentioned, the sum of ONE HUNDRED POUNDS: Declaring that the Income therefrom shall, on the First Day of April in each year, and within the Chamber of Horrors, Madame Tussaud's, London . . . be divided equally among those practising Dentists whose annual incomes shall fail to reach TEN THOUSAND POUNDS: Declaring also that, if in any year no applicant shall be found to satisfy the beforementioned financial stipulation, the income for that year shall be paid over to the Anti-Sweating League.
(LAxoN) . . . The Allan M. Laing foundation to provide cakes and ale and one silver groat for each of six poor Competitors that have by the sweat of their brow sought to please and failed, outshone in brilliance and basking only in the reflected glory of quotation and honourable mention ; the said fund to be held in trust and administered by the -Editor of the Spectator and such other editors as he may think fitting ; to be presented to the said poor Competitors at such public place as shall be adjudged by the trustees to be the most profuse in gravity, that the recipi- ents may there take an awful warning and not be discouraged. . . .
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