300 CAUSES OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



(a) A long list might be made of all the sinecures, 

 now quite useless, that some governments insist 

 upon maintaining for the advantage of those occu- 

 pying the posts. Such were certain offices in con- 

 nection with the Court in former days or the 

 avoueries of the end of the middle ages. 



" Like the Fief system," says Errera, when writing 

 about the Massuirs, " The avouerie afforded an effec- 

 tive protection military as well as judicial 

 against the various dangers arising in a still barbaric 

 age. But, in the course of the last centuries of the 

 middle ages, the obligations of feudal chiefs and 

 the condition of avouerie disappeared ; the reasons 

 were that relative security was attained ; militia 

 was established, and the army, under the command 

 of the sovereign himself, became better disciplined ; 

 and that there arose the organization of the justices 

 scabinales, of bailiwicks, and of superior courts of 

 justice. However, although the ancient offices dis- 

 appeared, the emoluments attached to them con- 

 tinued to be drawn. 1 



(b) It often happens that institutions which have 

 ceased to be functional are yet maintained as being 

 a source of profit not only to those in direct con- 

 nection with them, but to a considerable number of 

 other persons. 



Before the Keform Bill of 1832, when large 

 towns like Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester 

 were unrepresented in Parliament, the House of 



1 Errera, Les Massuirs, p. 75. Brussels, Weissenbruch, 1892. 



