THE HERO FUND.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2350, 17 November 1908, Page 3

THE HERO FUND.

BRAVE ACTS REWARDED. Mr. Carnegie’s ‘'Hero Fund” for the British Isles commences with a capital of ’£250,000, estimated to produce £12,000 a year. It will be administered by the trustees of the earlier Dunfermline fund ‘‘for bringing into the lives of the toilers more sweetness and light,” and its purpose is indicated in a letter to the chairman of the'Dunfermline Trust. “The success of the Hero Fund upon the North American continent has been so great,” lie wrote, ‘‘that I have decided to extend its benefits to my native land. We live in an heroic age. Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men and women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows; such are the heroes of civilisation. The false heroes of barbarism maimed and killed theirs. 1 have long felt that such true heroes and those dependent upon them should be freed from pecuniary cares resulting from their heroism, and as a fund for this purpose one and one-quarter million of dollars in 5 per cent bonds, yielding twelve thousand five hundred pounds sterling per annum, will be sent you. Judging from our expreience this sum is ample to administer the trust; meet the cost of maintaining injured heroes and their families during disability of the heroes; the widows and children of heroes who- may -lose their lives in surplus for emergencies and contributions.” There followed a detailed statement of the methods of administering the trust. “The field embraced by the fund,T : Mr. Carnegie added, t-he British Isles and. tli© waters thereof. The sea is the. scene of many heroic acts; No .action is. more heroic than that of doctors and nurses volunteering their services m the case of epidemic's. Railroad employees are remarkable for their heroism. All these and similar cases are embraced. Whenever heroism ife displayed by man or woman in saving human life in peaceful pursuits in the United Kingdom, you will make immediate and careful inquiries into the circumstances of the recipients, and whenever needed make provision for their wants; or those of. their families. If His Majesty over chooses to express a wish in those eases, it is to bo your latv.” Mr. Carnegie’s benefactions,' including over. .£8,000,0U0 for tho endowment of free libraries, already .amount to over twenty-five millions sterling.