TREATMENT OF KEW OFFICIALS 163 



office of Surveyor of Parks and Gardens. According to Smith's 

 account, Ayrton concluded by asking him to keep this con- 

 versation secret. Ayrton first described this secret visit to 

 Kew as a friendly visit to Hooker : his explanation later was 

 that he simply said ' it was not necessary for the Curator to 

 report, as the First Commissioner would himself communicate 

 with Dr. Hooker on the matter.' But he unfortunately made 

 no such communication, either at the moment, when he might 

 have found Dr. Hooker by enquiry at his house or in the 

 Gardens, nor by letter subsequently. 



Again, a vacancy arose in the Herbarium, which had 

 hitherto been filled up by selection of one of the young gardeners 

 who had shown botanical aptitude. But nomination lacked 

 the ultra-democratic touch so dear to the First Commissioner, 

 and he had let it be known that these appointments should 

 henceforth be made by competitive examinations under the 

 new Civil Service rules, though the Treasury wrote to him that 

 the exception allowed in the case of appointments requiring 

 technical skill might well be admitted here. The men them- 

 selves saw the futility of a non-technical examination, and 

 Hooker had to tell the First Commissioner that ' at present 

 there is no candidate for botanical employment among the 

 young gardeners ; lately there were several, but since it became 

 known that this brought them under the Civil Service rules 

 they have not come forward.' Thereupon Ayrton with an 

 economy of words towards the central fact informed the Civil 

 Service Commissioners that * with reference to the proposal 

 for selecting a candidate from among the best of the young 

 gardeners, Dr. Hooker reports that there are at present no 

 candidates for botanical employment.' The real point, that 

 they desired the other form of selection, is omitted. This, 

 says The Times, 



is an illustration of a reckless roughness in transacting 

 business in which Mr. Ayrton appears almost to take a pride. 

 He boasts of his refusal to discuss matters of past complaint, 

 of his success of confining his writing to the exigencies of 

 public business, and of his skill in rendering his communica- 

 tions as brief as possible. He evidently has to learn that 



