THE SINS OF LEGISLATORS. u 



the provisions of which traverse and qualify in all kinds of ways the 

 provisions of multitudinous acts on to which they are thrown : the 

 onus of settling what is the law being left to private persons, who lose 

 their property in getting judges' interpretations. And again this sys- 

 tem of putting networks of districts over other networks, with their 

 conflicting authorities, is quite consistent with the method under which 

 the reader of the Public Health Act of 1872, who wishes to know 

 what are the powers exercised over him, is referred to twenty-six pre- 

 ceding acts of several classes and numerous dates.* So, too, with ad- 

 ministrative inertia. Continually there occur cases showing the resist- 

 ance of officialism to improvements : as by the Admiralty when use of 

 the electric telegraph was proposed, and the reply was, " We have a 

 very good semaphore system " ; or as by the Post-Office, which the 

 late Sir William Siemens years ago said had obstructed the employ- 

 ment of improved methods of telegraphing, and since then has im- 

 peded the general use of the telephone. Other cases, akin to that above 

 set forth in detail, now and then show how the state with one hand 

 increases evils which with the other hand it tries to diminish : as when 

 it puts a duty on fire-insurances and then makes regulations for the 

 better putting out of fires ; dictating, too, certain modes of construc- 

 tion, which, as Captain Shaw shows, entail additional dangers, f Again, 

 the absurdities of official routine, rigid where it need not be and lax 

 where it should be rigid, occasionally become glaring enough to cause 

 scandals : as when a secret state document of importance put into the 

 hands of an ill-paid copying-clerk, who is not even in permanent Gov- 

 ernment employ, is made public by him ; or as when the mode of mak- 

 ing the Moorsom fuse, which was kept secret even from our highest 

 artillery-officers, was taught to them by the Russians, who had been 

 allowed to learn it ; or as when a diagram showing the " distances at 

 which British and foreign ironclads could be perforated by our large 

 guns," communicated by an enterprising attache to his own Government, 

 then became known " to all the Governments of Europe," while English 

 officers remained ignorant of the facts.J So, too, with state-supervision. 

 From time to time it is pointed out that coal-mine explosions continue 

 notwithstanding coal-mine inspection : the only effect being that more 

 inspection and more stringent regulations are demanded. Even where 

 the failure of inspection is most glaring, no notice is taken of it ; as 

 instance the terrible catastrophe by which a train full of people was 

 destroyed along with the Tay Bridge. Countless denunciations, loud 

 and unsparing, were vented against engineer and contractor ; but lit- 

 tle, if anything, was said about the government officer from whom the 



* " The Statistics of Legislation." By F. H. Janson, Esq., F. L. S., Vice-President of 

 the Incorporated Law Society. (Read before the Statistical Society, May, ISYS.) 



f " Fire Surveys ; or, a Summary of the Principles to be observed in estimating the 

 Risk of Buildings." 



X See " Times," October 6, 1874, where other instances are given. 



