RECORD REFORM.

SECTION REFORM AND ITS AUTHORS.

Is our previous papers, we indicated the great importance of the national records to the historian, the antiquary. and the student of the constitution, as well as their practical value in the business of' life to persons whose family was at any time of sufficient importance to have liad their ancestors recorded in legal documents, and to every one who may possess real property or become connected with it. We also pointed out the gross abuses which existed in the Record- offices, throneli the exorbitant amount of the lies demanded for "searches," ‘• copies," or any other business done by the officials; the imperfection of the indexes in ali the offices, the entire absence of «ng index in some offices, and the neglected state in which the Records themselves were generally left. We likewise endeavoured to show thot the various attempts, fin nearly forty years, to rectify these abuses by the means of Commissioners, bad been utterly use- less; the practical evils of the Record-(4ffices being altogether un- touched; the Records being left to decay, to destruction by vermin, or to theft ; whilst almost half a million of money had been expended on but little better than a series of private jobs. We have now to describe what has been done to remedy these evils.

The first step was to get rid of the last Commissioners and their

Secretary. The next was to abolish the powers of the difihrent Record-office-keepers, with their conflicting rights, rules, and modes of mismanagement ; which was accomplished by an act of Parliamente' piecing the records under " the charge and superin- tendence of the Master of the Rolls." The at also gave that functimen'y It power to make orders thr " cleaning, repairing, preserving, and arranging" the records, as well as for making indexes, and for removing the records from their place or de- posit without affecting their legal aufficnticity. Ile was permitted to appoint a Deputy-Keeper of Records; the Treasury was allowed to nominate Assistant-Keepers, and other subordinates, to be re- movable at the pleasure ofthe Master of the Rolls on reasons assigned to the Treasury; a public Record-office was directed to be esta- blished, of \villa certain Record-offices with their present clerks should be assumed to form a part ; this office to be under thetuanagement of the Master of thc Rolls, with power to make rules for the conduct of the business, fix the scale of the fees, and to remit their payment hi such cases as he should think tit. • The act permits the Secretary of Stet:: to orde.. the indexes of the Records, or the Records themselves, to be printed, and to fix the price at which they shall be sold to the public. It directs all money received for fee.3 III the new Record-office, and the produce of' the sale of any printed works, to be paid into the Exchequer ; it renders it obligatory on the Deputy-Keeper to make an annual Report to Parliament ; mid it provides, or course, for certain technical pur- poses. In pursuance of this act, Lord LANGDALE has drawn up a series of regulations tbr the management of the new Record-office ; which we print at length as an appendix, but whose leading points nmy be stated here, in juxtaposition with the evils which they remedy.

sew saarro. on) SYSTEM.

Oince hears 10 to 4 11 to 1 (Cluipterl.ouse:) 11 to :h Fee for Ceneral Search Is. ills. So'. to 101. Producing any nundu•roftierurds

Ill a court, pre day V.° Unlimited. but Living. in

two ensvs resehrd -It gni- nen,: Copies, at the rate of' every ht) words Is. to is. Si. fir every words.

Besides which, everybody mav now take "notc7=. extracts. or cer:es, in peiwil," fer Is.; so that an office- copy is only required when the doctinwilt hits to be submitted as evitlence. l'ialer the fernier system, no taw must copy any thing ; :And au office-extract was only eccasionally permitted ; So that ten, twenty, or thirty p.iunds. or more, lei:Olt have to lw paid ffir a ttotAttnota which eventually was not it :mod. The dillicultice throNvii in the way of literary in- quiry under tla. old system, :ire materially lessened by the new scale of fees; a bilst the poaer gismo. I to the :Master of the Rolls of remitting their payment, practically it :1114,a:ether.

Ilut a Mete Tetilleti011 Of i111111'01THICIlts hit cottdiict- hag the business of the offices, would be a very Fit 11 advan- tage. it' the records remained in Owir re:atter ei:heet

indexes or arrangement, or ill Ii stato of illeeiliif t v . C Aeeoraing, to 111c First IltpOtt Of Sir Fll AN, IS P.1 lAlll AN I. 1 l7,"S Deputy I:ceper of the lh coras, a beginning. and incensaierahle one, leis been nettle lievards reforming those evils. re, co,a- missioners seem to have been hoaxed with the most iii..redilde tales about the expense of blIliliul indeses. Somebody. specu- lating opoit their guilihititlr, told them that it mould re- quire 1 00,000/. to " complete the calendars at the Ttever." Secretary l'otweit, deentine; it expedient that the t'ontinittee 81)01111.1 lint ill 1111:,st'SS1011 Of some more twearofe estimate."

asserted that "it appeared the formation oe calendars would coet

the 511111 of :11l1/A100i." Now, sot, unit C:111 1W dotw when activity earnestly sets nbout business. lit one year, or the mi,ot- htitoons Itootirds 4,r th, (the nilich the rat-hunts took place) were repaired. al.r:11111etit ;"1,1 1.C11del."1 lit for use, by the 11 4a eyelid N1r. Iltes II Ii; the Homes or the parties Ill file itiottisitiones post mortem beim.; note entered in the catalogue : tile tolls ill the Exchequer or Pleas Repository are entirely coin- Idettal by .N1 r. Com: ; in about six months Nir. Iti..ves. tan elled through Wales and Chester, visited the different Record-offices in the Principality, and sufficiently surveyed their contents to arrange them into classes, and asc'ertain the number of each class, besides writing a very elaborate report upon them. In addition to which, " inventories are being made in the other Record-offices": but where the old officials are concerned, as they seem to be in several places, matters will probably not move at railway speed. In awarding the merit of this useful reform, a share must undoubt- edly be assigned to the present Ministers. They not wily granted the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the doings of the Commissioners, and permitted the passing of the Act, when their opposition would lime been fatal, but they gave the weight of their influence in fitvour of the measure, whereas a Tory Government would very likely have opposed it : not that they feared Record-ream», or cared much about it; but ro.;i4unee is their policy, and some leading Tories—as Lord CANTERBURY, Mr. WYNN, Sir R. IT. Isoms--were Commissioners committed to the jobs. Neither must Lord LANGDALE be passed without praise, for the manner in which he swept away the whole mass of official restrictions, and the effective regulations by which he superseded them.

In placing the subject before the House of C'ommons and work- ing it successfully through, Mr. CHARLES 1!:71.1:R was the fore- most ; not merely procuring the Committee, but thoroughly at- tending to its business as Chairman, and by apt though quiet ques- tions exposing the hollowness of the friendly witnesses, whom Commissioners Ixous turd WYNN brought forward, or defeating, by reexamination, the answers procured by leading questions, framed to prevent any but the wished-for reply : and in this task he was well supported by Dr. Bowaiso, Mr. 31:acis, and Mr. Ilawns, To Mr. Patariantoe belongs the merit—and no mean one—of getting the returns of the expenses of the old Commis- sions, from the Tory Government, besides vary active exertions and uncompromising independence as a Commissioner in blowing up the last concern.

But the man to whom, Lefore and above all ot:..ers. the public are really indebted for this useffil retina:), was Sir HARRIS NICOLAS. In l&27. when the old Commissioners. with Secretary CALM'. were snugly managing matters a./ the world being io igooranee of their existence, Sir Ilanats Nie.o..as pointed out the johhing and extravagance of the Record Commissioa, in the Thirospeetive Re- view. In 1529, he first exposed in the Matt/this/ea Reriete, many of the abuses of the Record-efees. which were till then as un- known as the Record Commissie:..; r ;asafessienal men were afraid

to speak out, since the Record C e uld throw obstacles in the way of thew professional . On the accession of the GREY Nlinistry to tithe np the subject by hisa

Wis(/ref/one (81 the ratnre. 'Ile re- turns of the expenses of the • 1:LIVill`j ix-1. II pro- cured by Mr. Paortienor. l teats \Vc a the field again in

1 Sal, with an elaborate • ::,ose expenses. from which we

drew so folic in our secon.: pi ),1 the ap:,,eintn:4 at of the last Commi.ssion by the Gary yeunz :•, .•• Lord all impediments and abost s Baouonam promised largely—e- • It.t.m.:tvowrit's For a 1"." "'':' • Mr. mitt:-

Cabinet question " ! 1 last week ; and as soon e was aketin at work. lUll• 1.

rattOa When hen the

more than once to wive t'A . .1 .7e. he B

theory—upon topics winch . .eerne,.

The), 111111ItartiC1.11:irS WIlit .1 '7 '

lister in this peculiar brae, .1 •

And he did all this me r oblotiuy and reproach. lle self. some anonymous and sa- versies with Sir FRANC17' P ‘4 titte Of rCfonlICTS ill purse esitt mittce. that he wos a ie 4:collected with li.eeeeie

L' resembles c7h who if they di‘l net :., • then% H :It the elev e:e and reare: ::::.‘ther pee eapiiene Aea case the 11. 1110Stly 110:11 the Illthie Of

propositi011 I., t` 1 AllitIS

NICOLAS ek t ale

1.41r editing his Pro■ C, received from 9001, to toe of Dr. Ao ow Ct. vet, fe:• liv hit closed ,mr present stages, we may ns to its future nine.,a to learn what eta', rds ,ase to aoro- t".e esual Ceea.- ations

'Si to

ms. eN.

. the even if it be a mere list, much more a catalogue raisonn6, digest-

ing the contents of each document, to enable an inquirer to tell at once whether it may be of use to him for the peculiar purpose

he has in view. The character of the various records, the dif-

ferent treatment they will respectively require, and the impossibility of yet fixing the definite " literary" ITIOde of compiling the cata- logues, are described by Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE in his First Re- port—page 10 et seq. But we scarcely see that the publ:eation of an Index to the Records, or at all events of a " Brief View of the

Indexes in the various Record-offices under the charge of the Master of the Rolls," need be delayed till the whole of the Records be arranged. It is true, this first catalogue would be imperfect, but

it would be better than nothing : it would not tell an inquirer whe-

ther the documents he wanted were in existence, but this is what even the Record-people cannot tell till they have examined all their

muniments. It would, however, enable him to satisfy himself at a glance, that in such a class of documents it coctiel /cot be, in such a class it na,;,Itt be, or in such a class it was /duly to be ; and thus to guide him in a more minute search at the offices. To procure proper and tally-descriptive indexes of all that needs to be described, no expense should be spared; and ample tune

should be allowed, provided that the time be really employed in

work. It is probable, too, that transcripts of the most important or the most perishable documents might advantageously be

taken, and sent to the British Museum. But an extensive

printing of the Records is a matter requiring very sound and .cautious judgment. Sir HARRIS NICOLAS, and several other literary or professional antiquarians who attended the Committee, seem to have a higher notion of the unirersal value of records than we can acquiesce in. It appears to us, that if the public are enabled to learn the nature of all the national muniments, by

means of cheap catalogues, and that a virtually free access is given to their perusal, all is done which can fairly be required. We would not say, do not print. Any manuscripts whose value is clearly ascertained—a series of publicly-important documents, records establishing sonic disputed historical filet, or throwing some clear

and strong light upon the manners and customs of our ancestors—are thiegs on which the public money might tidily be spent. It is desirable, for example, that Sir FRANCIS PAW It AVE should complete his " Parliamentary. Writs," with a less cumbrous appendage of digests, and Sir Haants NICOLAS his " Privy Council Books"; for they are each national muoiments, which every cultivated English gentleman would like to possess; the former throwing light on the early constitution of the Legislature, and its changes ; the latter.

unfolding the views of the Executive, and collectively embracing the acta of the commonwealth. In addition to which intrinsic

qualities, much money has ben expended upon both in publishing parts of a series, that will have been wasted if they be stopped where they are. The long. contemplated work on the Chronicles,

planned and undertaken by Mr. PET E. if it could be completed

at a moderate cost and in a reasonable time, might also be a desirable publication : but those two points of time and cost should be clearly settled, fur the order to commence was given

in 1822, and in 1836 one volume was not completed. But any indiscriminate attempt to publish the Records will involve an end- less expense. Poeta nascitur, non fit ; so it is with the historian. A genius will seek out his materials wherever they be, and profit by them ; but to print upon the chance of a genius springing up,

seems a wild scheme. The great historians of antiquity travelled into foreign countries, and mastered foreign languages, to acquire their materials : surely a modern historian may be troubled to

come to town. It would be desirable to give to the world what- ever there is in the Records establishing sonic itnporant and dis-

puted historical ftet, or throwing sonic strong light upon the manners of the age : but beyond what is distinctly and tangibly of direct use, we must confess we should be disinclined to go, at all events until the working of the new syxtem is ascertained.