On Tuesday, the Convocation of the University of Oxford accepted
Dr. Fortnum's conditional offer to bequeath to that University the remainder of his collection of arclneological treasures, as well as his library, and to transfer to it £10,000 in money, on condition that the University should expend £11,000 on the erection of a new Ashmolean Museum adjacent to the University Galleries, another £4,000 on fittings, and should augment to L600 a year the income arising from Dr. Fortnum's benefaction of £10,000. Dr. Fortnum also proposes to leave to the University an addi- tional £5,000 by will. The offer was not only accepted, but a unanimous vote of thanks was passed to Dr. Fortnum for his munificent gift. Conditional offers of this kind are not always to be snatched at, for they sometimes, when not made by genuinely instructed donors, involve a cost greater than the gift is worth. But in this case it is clear that the conditions were not thought unreasonable by those who best knew what the gift was worth, and what the con- ditions demanded really meant.
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