The profits of the establishment
she directed to be paid to the hospital.
Another coffee palace on similar lines she erected in Marylebone,
London, involving an outlay of several thousands.
South African colonization found in her a sympathetic patroness in days
when South Africa was little more than a name to the large majority of
Englishmen. At her expense in 1886 a party of twenty-four families was
sent to the Wolseley settlement, an estate acquired by purchase, about
seventeen miles from King William's Town, where full preparations for
their reception had been made by a committee. Within two years and
a-half the settlement was closed, the cheapness of untaxed drink having
changed the settlers from abstainers into drunkards.
The Viscountess was not daunted by this failure to realise her hopes,
and in 1888 another attempt at colonization was made under her auspices.
Twenty-five families, mostly from Hampshire, sailed for the Cape and
formed a new settlement, called by the name of the poet Tennyson. This
time the experience of the past was a warning, the enterprise was
attended by fairer prospects of success and before her death she had
the gratification of knowing that the settlers were contented and happy.
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