sequence of the death of my principal assistant in the office, who died at the age of fortythree his medical advisers constantly warning him that such would be the case if he persisted in not relaxing from his laborious duties. When I was in his situation, I myself for a whole week only had four hours bed on the average; at last I became ill, and it was found necessary to make an alteration so as to have a change of nights." The Committee Office was less laborious, because committees did not sit for long hours; but the arrangement of work in that office was a little curious. Nominally, the office was divided into four desks a principal, a senior, and a junior clerk at each. The principals, it will be remembered, did no work and got a great deal of the money; but they had all served their time. The work was distributed to the desks in rotation; and as payment was made by the number of days on which a committee sat, there was a large element of luck introduced. Public committees were paid for by the Treasury, and the fees were the property of the clerk. Private committee fees, on the other hand, were paid by the agents, and pooled -twothirds being divided among the sinecurists, and only onethird among the senior clerks. The juniors caught the crumbs from the seniors, by whom they were paid as deputies, and made odd sums by copying.

This strange system of receiving that for which you did no work, and working for

fees that you did not get, also nominally flourished in the Ingrossing Office. This survival of earlier times, in which work was excessively tedious and hours (fourteen to fifteen out of twenty-four) very long, earned the sum of 12s. 6d. per pressa press being a skin of of parchment containing forty-two lines, about seven words to a line, in an old crabbed handwriting. Of each 12s. 6d. the fee fund took 10s. 9d., and 1s. 9d. was left to left to the office. Of this 1s. 9d. the sinecurist and the head clerk received 6d. each, while the remaining 9d. went to the actual performer of the labour. It so happened, however, that the salaries of the three active members of this office were made up from the fee fund to certain fixed sums.

The first stirring of the dust of centuries did not take place without causing many eyes to smart; while the staunch conservatism of one and the artless surprise of another when questioned upon his own particular little perquisite make the reading of this evidence full of humour. One of the most delightful passages has been kept to conclude this article, and it is a passage most eloquent of the ancient, easy-going days. There was an official called the DeputyHousekeeper, who was chief of the lower staff; and his official income, though drawn from ten different heads, amounted to little over £400 a-year. His main profit, however, was unofficial, and derived from the provision of refreshment for the Members. Every one has

heard of Bellamy and his kitchen; his mutton-pies are said to have been on the lips of the dying Pitt.2 This Bellamy was Deputy-Housekeeper, and was succeeded in his office by a son, who gave evidence in 1833 and revealed the history of the famous kitchen. Bellamy, besides being Deputy Housekeeper, was a wine-merchant, and when Members, jaded with debate, desired to have a refreshment-room in the House, Bellamy was fixed upon as the obvious organiser. He was approached, and, after some demur, consented. A kitchen and a diningroom were found for him, and a certain sum allowed him for servants. The Members apparently fixed their own prices for food, and Bellamy found it a good method of selling his wine. The tariff was given in full for a sandwich, Members paid 1s.; for cold meat, bread, beer, and cheese, 2s. 6d; for cold meat, salad, and tart, 3s. 6d.; the most expensive dinner of steak, veal pie, and chops, ad lib., with tart, salad, pickles, beer, and toasted cheese, never came to more than 5s. 6d. Only the best wine was served, 18. 6d. being charged for a glass of negus; 10s. for a bottle of claret, and 8s. for port. It is no wonder that in the convivial eighteenth century Members, cheered by the finest wine and Bellamy's most extensive repast, could make eloquent speeches of five hours in length. Those days are now gone by, and under the régime of the

present Kitchen Committee, with its wonderful 1s. dinner, Members are tempted to economy in eating, which is not so conductive to exuberance in speaking.

But Bellamy has gone, and with him the eighteenth century. Since then Parliament has been transformed, and even the Palace of Westminster has been rebuilt. For the officers there are no more perquisites and no more gratuities; the "family" clerkship has given way to the appointment after competitive examination; fees and sinecures have become fixed salaries and pensions, and neatness and precision reign where dust and disorder once held sway.

But as Charles Lamb dwelt with affection on the past glories of the India House, so it is pleasant for one who serves the House of Commons to dream occasionally of the more picturesque but more laborious days when the worthies whom he has succeeded took their fees and shortened their lives; to call up the courtly Hatsell, or the recalcitrant Scobell, or the stool of Elsyng more prized than the Speaker's chair; and so to ponder, envying their more unfettered lives, blessing, perhaps, his own more secure existence, till his dream is brought to a close in the Rolls of Parliament with that transitory figure, his father in history, John de Scardesburgh, "the common Clerk."

O. C. WILLIAMS.

2 See Rosebery's 'Pitt,' Appendix.

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THERE is, happily, in Oxford one element of comparative stability-"The undergraduate unchanging as Egypt, revolutions and commissions leave him as they find him, self-centred and serene, for he is beyond them and above them, though his teachers are chameleons and change with their surroundings."

This description was written twelve years ago, and twelve years more of acquaintance with the undergraduate from new and varied points of view have confirmed the writer in his admiration and affection for that amazing creaturenot that he is faultless; he is full of faults which make him lovable, "Custom cannot stale his infinite variety." Infinite though that variety is, he remains essentially the same -a young British human boy of many types, even of many nationalities, for he has a wonderful power of assimilating the youth of all Englishspeaking peoples, Orientals, and even young Frenchmen and Germans, to his standards and ideas without any conscious effort on his part. They sooner or later become dominated by the esprit de corps of their college, and the desire to be effective members of it, "to do something for it," as the saying is, in athletics or in the schools or in its social life; and the young strangers meet with encouraging and kindly treatment in the vast majority

of cases, and from the best men.

Oxford has become a second Babel, in which many tongues are spoken. Forty or fifty years ago foreigners were rare in Oxford. In Balliol in the early 'Sixties there was not one, and if there had been, few of us could have made ourselves intelligible to him in any language but our own, save in Latin, possibly in Greek, perhaps also in French of a deplorable kind, for we had received a good classical education. A young Englishman may not be better off for languages now than he was then, but he is at least aware that there are other customs and views of life than his own worth considering, and to be reckoned with if he is to maintain the place of his nation in the world. A Japanese, whose stature is insignificant, and whose cricket and football and rowing, if existent, seem beneath contempt, is now recognised to be a man of war. is not extravagant to say that the career of "Ranjie," as he is affectionately called, has done much to make our youth, especially our undergraduates, realise that we have an Indian Empire, and that it may be difficult to hold against men "who can play a game like that." French and German heard in the "High" suggest to the undergraduate with much vividness that there are great nations outside of this

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