of persons employed at the chief office is about five hundred, who were principally distributed in the following departments, in 1835:-The 7 Commissioners, who constitute the Board; employed in the Secretary's office, 20 persons; in the Correspondents' office, 30; in the Solicitors', 24, the two latter offices having each subdivisions for the Scotch and Irish business. In the Accountants' office there were 72 persons, with similar subdivisions; in the Receiver-General's department, 112, and 34 in that of the Comptroller-General ; 8 in the Auditor's office; 8 in the Security office; 10 in the Store office; 5 in the Diary office. The number of Surveying General Examiners was 112. Many important changes have taken place in the organization of the chief office since 1835. The departments of Account for England, Scotland, and Ireland have been consolidated; that of Comptroller of Cash has been abolished; the Comptroller-General and Auditor-General's department have been consolidated. The Excise Printing-office was abolished by authority of the Treasury in 1841; but a Distillery, for the re-distillation of smuggled foreign spirits, is still under the management of the chief office. In the first twenty years after the peace considerable reductions were made in the Excise Office, in consequence of duties being abolished. The number on the English establishment reduced in these twenty years was 847. The total repeal of the salt duty was followed by the reduction of 196 officers; salaries, 18,9627. By the repeal of the leather duty 30 officers were reduced, salaries 33627.; by the repeal of the beer duty 228 officers, salaries 24,045.; of the duty on printed cottons by the reduction of 148 officers, salaries 15,064/.; and the reduction of the duty on candles was followed by a reduction of 207 officers, whose salaries amounted to 22,6901. In 1797 the Excise establishment was considered to be in so efficient a state, and so well managed, that Mr. Pitt pointed it out as a model for other public departments.

The outdoor business in London is conducted by twelve General Surveyors, to each of whom is assigned a district called a "survey," and these are broken up into about fifty smaller divisions, in each of which a house is rented for the business of the department. The English country establishment, in 1835, consisted of 55 Collectors and 2 Supernumeraries, 61 Clerks, 316 Supervisors, 1023 Divisions, 1499 Ride officers, 68 Permanent Assistants and 7 temporary, 54 Supernumeraries, and 104 Permit Writers. The fifty-five Collections in England and Wales (exclusive of London) are divided into 315 districts, and these districts into "rides" and "foot-walks." Where the traders are scattered, and the officer is required to keep a horse, it is called a ride; but where they are more numerous, and a horse is not necessary, it is called a division or foot-walk. The circuit of a ride" is about eighteen miles, and that of a division is under sixteen. The Collector, the chief officer of a " Collection," is allowed a clerk, and visits each market-town eight times in the course of a year, to receive the duties and to transact other business connected with the department, besides having to attend to matters relating to the discipline and efficiency of the service. The number of officers in a Collection varies from forty to ninety. The supervisors are in charge of a "district," and next come the ride and division officers, whose operations he constantly checks by surveying, at uncertain times, the same premises. The labours of a supervisor and the officers under him are often very

86

heavy. The latter are called upon to survey manufacturing processes at the most untimely hours. Before going out each day the officer leaves a memorandum behind him, stating the places he intends to survey, and the order in which he will visit them, and he is obliged to record the hour and minute when he commences each survey. He is never sure that the Supervisor will not resurvey his work, and if errors are discovered they must be entered in the Supervisor's "diary." These diaries are transmitted to the chief office in London every two months, and no officer is promoted without a strict examination into them, in reference to his efficiency. The Surveying-General Examiner is a check upon the Supervisors, and is dispatched from the chief office to a certain district, without any previous intimation. When a supervisor's character is taken out for promotion, his books are examined for one year, and the books of all the officers under him for a quarter of a year; all the accounts are recast, and if in the books of the officers errors are discovered, the supervisor is quite as responsible as if they had taken place in his own books; and a certain degree of neglect on his part would retard his promotion. This inquiry is conducted by the country examiners; and when this has been done, the investigation is taken up by a surveying-general examiner, for the purpose of ascertaining the disposal of the supervisor's time: whether it has been judiciously employed or not; whether he has been too long employed on a duty which ought to have occupied a shorter period, &c. Two months are required for completing the investigation; and when the report is laid before the Board the name of the officer is not given. The clerks of the Diary office have all been distinguished for their ability as supervisors. No one is promoted unless, having served a certain fixed period in one grade, he petitions for advancement, but this involves the rigid examination just alluded to, which is technically termed "taking out a character." It is now doubted whether Mr. Pitt's plan for the periodical removal of officers from one district to another is attended with so much advantage to the service as has generally been supposed. A corrupt officer will endeavour to effect a collusion. with the trader of another district, and the fraudulent trader will attempt to corrupt the new officer. Frequent removals also interfere with the comfort of families, and interrupt education. About 1100 officers change their residences each year.

Previous to 1768 the Excise Office was on the west side of Ironmonger Lane: it was formerly the mansion of Sir J. Frederick. In 1768 the trustees of the Gresham estates obtained an act to enable them to make over the ground whereon Gresham College stood to the Crown for a perpetual rent of 5001. per annum. "For this paltry consideration," says Mr. Burgon, in his 'Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham,' "was Gresham College annihilated; nay, the very site of it parted with for ever." He adds:- Will it be believed that the City and the Mercer's Company further agreed to pay conjointly, out of their respective shares of the Gresham estate, 18007. to the Commissioners of his Majesty's Excise, towards the charge of pulling down the College and building an Excise Office." The dismantling of the College was begun on the 8th of August, 1768. The Excise Office is plain in design, but of most commanding aspect. The merits of this edifice are known far less extensively than many others of inferior character.

There are architects of the present day who state that for grandeur of mass and greatness of manner, combined with simplicity, it is not surpassed by any building in the metropolis. It consists of two ranges, one of stone, the other of brick, separated from each other by a large court, which, during the re-building of the Royal Exchange, has been temporarily used by the mercantile and shipping interests as an Exchange. The entrance to each structure is by a staircase in the centre, which leads by a long passage to the various apartments of the commissioners and clerks. The architect of the Excise Office was Mr. James Gandon.

It is with great institutions as with great men-if they would preserve their reputation unimpaired, they should never survive the loss of their distinguishing powers; or, we may rather say, the case of the institution is the worst, as being in every respect the most injurious of the two. The accidents of life die with the man, and are forgotten, leaving all that is truly worthy of remembrance alone to be remembered; but institutions unfortunately will not die except by a slow, lingering process that too often wears out alike our patience and our gratitude, and at the same time makes us confound right and wrong together, by teaching us, however unconsciously, to infer their past from their present unfitness. Saddening are the degradations to which they are subject through this unfortunate tenacity of life. Who, for instance, can read without regret of the once mighty fellowships of London, being told by authority that their " ruling bodies are in effect mere trustees for charitable purposes or chartered festivals,"

VOL. V.

I

and that the "freemen and liverymen, or commonalty, are persons entitled to participate in these charities, to partake of the feasts of the Company, and qualified to be promoted to the office of trustees; and in this light alone are the different orders of the Companies to be viewed"? It may be true; but, rather than that such things should have been said, one cannot but. heartily wish that the Companies had manfully perished in the breach when Charles II. opened his quo warranto battery against them, and, after destroying their independence, left them to sink into inglorious inactivity. But the Commissioners in the above passage refer only to the principal Companies, those which had grown so rich in the days of their prosperity as to have charities that now, in their decline, require management-funds that will support" chartered festivals;" but how is it with the others? Why, whilst some have disappeared altogether, the Musicians, alas! are "very poor, and in debt to their treasurer," and the Masons can only occasionally-and the occasions are very infrequent-have a dinner even on Lord Mayors' days? But the case that most touches our sympathies is that of the Pinmakers; there is a romance and a pathos about their position inexpressibly attractive and touching: "No returns relating to any bindings or admissions to the Company, whether in right of patrimony or otherwise, appear in the Chamberlain's books within the last forty years. It is supposed that one or two individuals belonging to the Company are yet living,"† bearing about with them, no doubt, in their mysterious obscurity, a high consciousness of the unsuspected dignities that have centered in their persons: but they are probably poor, as well as proud, and therefore doubly resentful of the neglect with which they have been treated: the very Commissioners said not a word more about them,— did not even propose a commission of discovery to restore them to the civic brotherhood; so they will die and make no sign,-the very skies looking as bright or as dull as usual, Cheapside in a state of perfect unconsciousness,brother corporators dining, or talking of dining, at the very instant, haply, that the last of the "Pin-makers" is leaving the world.

But now, forgetting awhile what the Companies are, let us see what they were three or four centuries ago.

It is the morning of the festival of Corpus Christi; and the Skinners are rapidly thronging into the hall, in their new suits or liveries, and falling into their places in the procession that is being formed. As they go forth, and pass along the principal streets, most imposing is the appearance they present. Scattered at intervals along the line are seen the lights of above a hundred waxen torches "costly garnished," and among the different bodies included in the procession are some two hundred clerks and priests, in surplices and copes, singing. After these come the Sheriffs' servants, then the clerks of the compters, the Sheriffs' chaplains, the Mayor's sergeants, the Common Council, the Mayor and Aldermen in their brilliant scarlet robes; and, lastly, the members of the Company which it is the business of the day to honour, the Skinners, male and female. The church of St. Lawrence, in the Poultry, is their destination, where they all advance up to the altar of Corpus Christi, and make their offerings, and then stay whilst mass is performed. From the church they return in the same state to the hall to dinner. Extensive are the preparations for so numerous a company. Besides the principal and the side-tables in the hall, there are tables laid out † Report, p. 208.

Corporation Commission, Second Report, Introduction, p. 20.