TESTIMONIALS. T HE function of the Times is in one respect
the opposite of that of Heaven. It helps those who cannot, or will not, help themselves. A large part of the letters which suffering Englishmen confide to the columns so liberally opened to their appeals, relate to matters which the writers might settle for themselves with a very small expenditure of trouble and resource. This is specially true of a recent correspondence about testimonials. Letter after letter has set forth the absurdity—nay, the wicked- ness—of a system which assumes that men are to receive an additional reward for doing that which they have undertaken to do. It is becoming the fashion to get up testimonials on every possible occasion, for presentation to every possible person ; and if we may judge from the letters in the Times, there is a growing public which excessively resents being applied to for any such purpose. Evidently this public has no idea that it can do anything for its own protection. Whenever it is asked to subscribe, it subscribes. It dreads the collector's approach, but it does not run away from him. Probably, like Mr. Bunsby on the occasion of his marriage, it feels that any such effort would. be unavailing. It pays its money with outside meekness and interior cursing, and. then flies to the Englishman's refuge. Yet a simple refusal to subscribe would go a long way to meet the case. Contributors to testimonials are a class by themselves. Their habits and feelings are perfectly well known to those who make the getting up of these things their business. Just as the tramp distinguishes the people who will give him a meal from those who will only direct him to the work- house or hand him over to the police, the expert in testimonials distinguishes the cheerful giver from the man who begins by saying that he must have time to think it over, and ends by sending a written refusal. And when the two classes of men are thus ranged side by side in his mind, he notes with joy how unequally the world is divided between them, and how indisputable is the preponderance of those to whom it is worth his while to apply. There is not indeed any difference between the two classes as regards their unwillingness to give. The man who is ready with his guinea is at bottom quite as angry at being asked for it as the man who meets the request with a decided negative. It is only that the one lacks the courage which the other possesses, and has to pay for his deficiencies.
In its inception the idea of a testimonial was rational enough. Now and again there arises some one who either does the work he has to do conspicuously better than others, or has found time and inclination to do a good deal more work than naturally falls to his share. Obviously in either of these cases there is a claim to special gratitude and recognition. The man has done something more than was required of him, something which was not contemplated in the original agreement, and therefore is not included in the terms as originally settled. It is natural enough that those who have benefited by this additional work, or the additional excellence, should be anxious to pay their debt to the worker, and for this a testimonial is a convenient vehicle. But the time has long passed when testimonials were able to stand this severe test. Excel- lence is an elastic term, and. in England there has always been so much voluntary work that there are few people who work at all who do not do something over and above that which they are actually paid for. The degree of merit which justifies a testimonial cannot be estimated with any exactness, and lax views upon this point are easily extended to cases in which what is doubtful is not the amount but the existence of desert. Happily, perhaps, most of us are heroes to some one, and if this some one happens to be of an active temper, and to have little to do, there is not one of us who may not some day come in for at the least an illuminated address. More often, however, the testi- monial takes a more substantial form. The originator of the seheme would gladly collect signatures if he could collect nothing better, but it makes no greater demand on his time to collect money, and the excitement and glory of extracting the money is much greater. When the tempta- tion to collect guineas for a bust, or a picture, or a piece of plate has once been yielded to, the habit is speedily formed, until at last, as soon as one testimonial has been presented, the originator of it is at once ready to under- take another of the same delightful tasks. Nor need the getters-up of testimonials always content themselves with bringing down only one bird for each stone thrown. When the object is alive indeed, this is almost unavoidable. So long as the man is there to receive the gift it must ordinarily be made to him, and not to the i public at large. But when he s not there to receive it, when it is his memory and not himself that is to be honoured, this law holds good no longer. Savages may place their money in a dead man's grave in order that he may find it in another world, but a practical Englishman naturally prefers to let the living have the benefit of it. He sees, moreover, that if he can appeal to two feelings at once, he will have a double chance of extracting a subscrip- tion. Consequently the news that some one has died who deserves a testimonial is quickly followed by the discovery that there is some local or general object which would be very much the better for the money raised for this testi- monial. As one of the correspondents of the Times says, the formula runs thus :—" The village needs a public clock. Mr. So-and-so is dead. Let us run a memorial to him and get the clock." In this way the man who is in- different to the claims of departed worth may be caught by the plea of present utility. He has never thought very highly of Mr. So-and-so, but he has often thought that it would be convenient to have something to set his watch by without going all the way to the station. Perhaps, if the testimonial were going to Mr. So-and-so's family, he would have nothing to say to it ; but after all, a clock is a useful thing, though it is a silly thing to call it a testi- monial. In this way one side of the parish is secured, and there is a fair chance that the other side—the people who can trust their own watches, or are not anxious to know the time—will have sufficient regard for Mr. So-and-so to be glad to see his name associated with a useful outlay. In this way the villagers come to associate death with the supply of a public want, and are the more likely to have another ready when the opportunity for a testimonial recurs.
We are afraid that the only remedy for the evil, is the growth on the part of the public of a higher standard of merit, and a firmer resolution not to contribute to testimonials when this standard has not been reached. It is impossible to say what constitutes a degree of merit sufficient for a testimonial, except that it should be such as is not met with every day. Ordinary men do what they have to do in an ordinary sort of way, and are paid for their labour either by the salaries they receive, or by the gratitude of those for whose benefit they work. The pro- posers of a testimonial should be plainly told on every possible occasion that they will only waste their breath, or their letter-paper, if they try to make the possession of these commonplace deserts the occasion for anything over and above the payment either in money or in goodwill which they receive as a matter of course. No doubt the authors of the letters we have referred to will go on pity- ing themselves that they should have to refuse subscrip- tions which it is easier and pleasanter to give. But the duty of saying " No " when " No " is the proper thing to say, has been too long a moral commonplace to leave much hope for those sanguine souls who wish the Times to make the evasion of it easier.
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