THE NEW RECORD SERVICE.
SECOND LETTER.
TO THE EDITOR or THE SPECTATOR.
Loudon, BM l'..Zovember 18:0.
Stn—Having related to you in my first letter what happened to ine under the immediate rule of Sir Fins Nets PALGI1AVE at the Rolls Douse, 1 beg leave to entertain y-ou si itit a occurrences I had an opportunity of wkneasing at the Repository of Whitehall Yard. On the ground-floor of the office, I discovered three vast mums filled with racks reaching to the ceiling. and containing large bundles of psper. completely covered and penetrated wit II in oily and rancid black dust, the bequ:sts or the old Commissions. Both thesi It arid snail were disgusting. Mr. it. Cone, under whose care the office wo, placed, found that the operat immims a dusting and cleaning would I quire the employ nient of four men at least. Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE, under a plea of economy, only allowed two men. This proceed- ing puzzled ley mathematics : for I argued—if two men will in form a vertain work in a certain time which tour men will do in halt' that time, the amount of wages to he paid in both eases will be the same. But the rasa was worse than this : the men had first to go In greater or Shorter distance to take the bundles from the racks, and in doing so to use tilt ladder; next, they had to carry them to the dustina-romn, where they were thoroughlv beaten, lit ushed, and wip,d; then they lool to bring them back to their former phice, and to mount and deseend the ladder a second time. These different occupations being too many for two ireo, could not but occasion a great loss of time, and want of steadiness in the h:C11. The greatest inconvenience, however, toiginated in the disagreeable nod emm ii iiir,mtluv nature oldie operation of dusting; the duet raised by the beating 11( ady the men mid producing violent coughs. The consequence was, that the men spent as much time as possible in going and coming and in discessieg the safest method of dmting, and the least time possible in the dustiug itself: the work did not proceed at all, and the Inca were continually grum!ding. 1111%. COLE, perceiming the utter im- possibility of continuing iii this. way, profited of a temporary ahseoce of Sir FRANCIS PA r.c ii ;VI:. tutu lemui Ifiken his holydays; and, upon liL (,w ii respon- sibility, engaged two boys in addition to the two men. In three weeks the whole work wus completely done. Allow inc to trouble you with another illustration of the economical princi- ples of Sir FRANCIS PAL(.11.% V E. The two awn, as it appears front the diary. in the office, %mould ham, required three months to complete their mm rah—which, each of the men receiviiig III t shillings a week, would have made for wages: each of the boys recede. d I/. a week—makes for the four in three reeks ex- actly ; or a saving of len %seeks of time, and 24/. of wages. It is frem sueli little things that we learn to know great men—ea. unglue &moan. It may he thought, Loa em r, that such things were beneath the notice of such a I
.eareed antiquary. Sir F1C ANTIS PALGRAVE Undouldaly is; W110,
moreover, hud already, utak r the eld Commissions, betrayed a kind of natural frailty oil this very stihject, at the Chapterhouse, by idioms ing the documents there to get into is state ut •• This fact having been known to Minis- ters, and probably also the cut hur i, that a number of loose (carts and sbeets were, under the superintendence a s:r FRANCIS, HO wretchedly ini.bound at the same office, that it is implead'de now to undo the mischief again, and Sir FRANCTS P{LGRAVE heiug upon these and similar precedents appointed De- puty littp■T 01 the new Scnice,—we Must believe, that the matter in deemed either not worth consideration, or only appropriate to recommend a man to pro- motion. 'But there cannot he the least doubt, that the making of calendars amid Indexes is considered to be a matter of importance, as at this very moment it engrosses neorly an the attention and activity of the different Recoldsollices in London. It 4012m:fore, of this subject that I beg leave to speak for a few
rooraents.
The rooms up-stairs of the Repository contain a great number of rolls from the Court of Exchequer since the time of EDWARD the First, of which only 10,000 skins of parehrnent remain to be calenderecl. All the entries in the rolls being made according to fixed furmularies, the condensing of those formularies for the index is uncommonly easy, and I might almost say mechanical. After ft few weeks spent in practising the reading of the rolls, and two weeks more in studying part of the calendar made by Mr. COLE, I found tnyself fully enabled to set to work. A roll from the Commonwealth was completed in a few daye. 'When I submittid my papers to Mr. COLE, lie only introduced a few correc- tions, and expressed some satisfaction with the mode in which 1 had discharged my duty. At the same time, however, he gave instruction to another Clerk. to revise my calendar and look over the roll, in order to see it' 1 bad omitted any thing of' importance. This was quite in order ; but judge of my astonishment when I found, upon receiving back my writings that the clerk had scarcely left a word unaltered in them. 'Ile fact was, that fin. the same rolls, Its followed a different system of ealendering from that of Mr. COLE. The clerk to whom I was referred, was a Mr. LASCELLES—Is man of great experience and sound erudition in Record-concerns. Ile and Mr. Cone, before 1 entered the office, were the only persons occupied on the calendar. In perhaps six months the whole work will be done—and then? Then, it must be decided if the system of Mr. Cola: or that of Mr. LASCELLES is to prevail ; and according as the decision falls, either what Mr. COLE bas done or what Mr. LASCELLES has (1011e toust be completely rewritten. Would it not have been better to decide at first about the respective merits of the different systems, and by fixing upon the better to render all subsequent alterations superfluous? The task was not difficult ; as I Myna; (11101i two days' experience, felt com- petent to give the preference to the system of Mr. Cone, because more easy, and more closely followin. the order of facts and the language of the rolls. Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE, if' had only spent three or four hours in eotnparing the calendar of Mr. Cone and Afr. LASCEI.LES, might have come to some de- cision, unless choosing to suggest 801110 improvements. Why did he not do it? His system, as well as I can jadge of it, appears to be, to take as much money as possible and to give in return as little time and labour as be may safely bestow. In each (Mice they keep a diary, which every month is sent to the Secretary, Mr. THOMAS; who SUM Up the whole business done, and then transmits the results to Sir FRANCIS PALCuAvE. By this method, Sir FRANCIS PALGRAvE is enabled to set forth in Ids Annual Report, what has been done during the year ; but to convince himself with his own eyes hoar it has been done, would of course neeessitate an outlay of time which an econo- mist must avoid by all means. So fa, so gond. The only difficulty I. ex- perience now, is to decide, whether Lord LANG DALE is superfluous, or Sir FRANCIS l'ar.onavE, under such circumstances; for until now, I believed that it was the department of Lord I.axclIALI: to give orders for what was to done, and that of Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE to take care that those orders should lie well executed ; and this, in my opinion, constituted the how. If Sir FRANCIS PAM:RAVE takes not immediate and speedy measures for insuring good calendars and indexes to the public, what remains for him to do? There are, to my knowledge, no other occupations entailed upon the offices, than those mentioned above, and searches, and the taking of Copies for legal purposes; and the latter can give Mtn no trouble, as the work is entirely perffirined in the different offices. To lay down the system how the calendars and indexes are Cs) be digested, and to superintend its careful and uniform execution, is and must be his principal occupation; otherwise his place is a sinecure. Will he do this?
The question is, whether Ile can do it ; for ill his first Annual Report he declares, in a passage also quoted ire your papers on Record Reform, the "im- possibility of yet fixing the definite literary Runic or compiling the catalogues." This is a strange assert ion : there is nothing easier in this world than the compila ing of catalogues, provided one learned man first lay down the rule's, idler which he may safely intrust mechanical drudges smith the execution. Or—for I may be niistaken in referenve to the Records, th ough I know from my omen experience, that Mr. Cone at 'Whitehall Yard has hit upon an excellent and easy system of calendering for the rolls there—perhaps the thing is impossible in itself. Sir Fitaxers does not say so; for lac only maintains, that it is impossible now to fix a definite mode. For what does lie wait, then? Until the whole work is done ; the definite mode then to be fixed, by doing the same work a second time all over? This is a palpable abstirdity,—unless Sir FRANCIS PALGRAVE wished to shift a work to he done now upon time shoulder of hie successor, and to coimm. an excuse for present inactivity. There is a sure method of testing the impossibility of the thing,. Suppose Sir FRANCIS PAT, GRATE were told to submit to the Trealii.v, within the spare of three inonths, a determined method fir compiling all die catalogues of the different offices, and that Mr. HENRI' Com:, Mr. Durres IIAR Dv, and above till Sir IlAnnis Nicot,As, were told to try their ingenuity during the same time iit the same thin.: would not this be an expeditietis method of settling the difficulty at once'?
The radical fault which Government committed in the reconstruction of the new Record-service, 'Was the Orgallinti011 (4 a regular service with permanent officers for merely temporaly purposes. If the pm ,-m Comniissions had done their duty, there would be Ito necessity now for dusting, flex. and for nuking calendars and indexes. As it is, however, the:re ol jeets, 119 I said already, engross the greater portion of the funds of the service and the thin: of its ofhcers, But all Otis temporary work will, it is to be lopcd, be brought to a conclusion. What will be done titer? The Records dispersed in different offices will be united 111 cute locality ; for which a tower in the future Parliament Palace has been already singled out. But what will the numerous officers who have been appointed do in the new locality ? If they shall have only to assist in making searches and copies, they will enjoy a great deal of otiurn cam digit ate in addi- tion to their salaries. Either Government ought to have postponed until the opening of the Central Office the organization of a reaular service, and only elmaged temporary assistants for the temporary work to'he done, or they ought to'lliave fixed first the duties of the new Olive to he established hereafter. With a few suggestions on this latter point, I intend to conclude my corre- spondence.
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