THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 465 



inefficient that citizens dread employing it, lest, instead of getting sue- 

 cor in their distress, they should bring on themselves new sufferings. 

 And then startling comment on the system, if we could but see it 

 there spring up private voluntary combinations for doing the business 

 which the State should do, but fails to do. Here in London there is 

 now proposed a Tribunal of Commerce, for administering justice 

 among traders, on the pattern of that which in Paris settles many 

 thousands of cases a year. 



Even after finding the State perform so ill this vital function, one 

 might have expected that it would perform well such a simple function 

 as the keeping of documents. Yet, in the custody of the national re- 

 cords, there has been a carelessness such as "no merchant of ordinary 

 prudence " would show in respect to his account-books. One portion 

 of these records was for a long time kept in the White Tower, close to 

 some tons of gunpowder, and another portion was kept close to a 

 steam-engine in daily use. Some records were deposited in a tempo- 

 rary shed at the end of "Westminster Hall, and thence, in 1830, they 

 were removed to other sheds in the King's Mews, Charing Cross, 

 where, in 1836, their state is thus described by the Report of a Select 

 Committee : 



"In these sheds 4,136 cubic feet of national records were deposited in the 

 most neglected condition. Besides the accumulated dust of centuries, all, when; 

 these operations commenced" (the investigation into the state of the Records), 

 " were found to be very damp. Some were in a state of inseparable adhesion to> 

 the stone walls. There were numerous fragments which had only just escaped 

 entire consumption by vermin, and many were in the last stage of putrefaction.. 

 Decay and damp had rendered a large quantity so fragile as hardly to admit of 

 being touched ; others, particularly those in the form of rolls, were so coagulated; 

 together that they could not be uncoiled. Six or seven perfect skeletons of rats- 

 were found embedded, and bones of these vermin were generally distributed 

 througbout the mass." 



Thus, if we array in order the facts daily brought to light, but 

 which, unhappily, drop out of men's memories as fast as others are- 

 added, we find a like history throughout. Now the complaint is of the- 

 crumbling walls of the Houses of Parliament, which, built of stone 

 chosen by a commission, nevertheless begin to decay in parts first 

 built before other parts are completed. Now the disclosure is about a 

 new fort at Seaford, based on the shingle so close to the sea that a 

 storm washes a great part of it away. And now there comes the ac- 

 count of a million and a half spent in building the Alderney harbor, 

 which, being found worse than useless, threatens to entail further cost 

 for its destruction. Scarcely a journal can be taken up that has not 

 some blunder referred to in a debate, or brought to light by a Report,, 

 or pointed out in a letter, or commented on in a leader. Do I need an 

 illustration ? I take up the Times of this morning (November 13th), 

 and read that the new bankruptcy law, substituted for the bankruptcy 



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