A DRAIN ON THE EXCHEQUER.
"The world," said The Times on Monday, "has been looking for some sign that we intend to live within our means " ; and on Tuesday announced that the Board of Education had approved the expenditure of SAO by a Lincolnshire Educa- tion Committee on the construction of a footbridge across a drain to enable a five-year-old boy (named, rather ironically, Wise) to get to the Swineshead Council School. . . . But we do wrong to jest. Never shall it be said that Britain, however hard the times, allowed £40 to stand between one of her sons and his irregular verbs. One has one's pride, you know. But it was, we confess, with a certain relief that we read on the same day the pronouncement of a speaker on education. "There are," he said, "few soft places on the road to education." If a drain costs the taxpayer 140, a quagmire or two might work out terribly expensive.
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