THERE are few things in this beautiful country of England, more
picturesque to the eye, and agreeable to the fancy, than an old
Cathedral town. Seen in the distance, rising from among cornfields,
pastures, orchards, gardens, woods, the river, the bridge, the roofs of
ancient houses, and haply the ruins of a castle or abbey, the venerable
Cathedral spires, opposed for many hundred years to the winter wind and
summer sun, tower, like a solemn historical presence, above the city,
conveying to the rudest mind associations of interest with the dusky
Past. On a nearer approach, this interest is heightened. Within the
building, by the long perspectives of pillars and arches; by the earthy
smell, preaching more eloquently than deans and chapters, of the common
doom; by the praying figures of knights and ladies on the tombs, with
little headless generations of sons and daughters kneeling around them;
by the stained-glass windows, softening and mellowing the light; by the
oaken carvings of the stalls, where the shorn monks told their beads; by
the battered effigies of archbishops and bishops, found built up in the
walls, when all the world had been unconscious, for centuries, of their
blunt stone noses; by the mouldering chapter-room; the crypt, with its
barred loopholes, letting in long gleams of slanting light from the
Cloisters where the dead lie, and where the ivy, bred among the broken
arches, twines about their graves; by the sound of the bells, high up
in the massive tower; by the universal gravity, mystery, decay, and
silence. Without, by the old environing Cathedral-close, with its
red-brick houses and staid gardens; by the same stained glass, so dark
on that side though so bright within; by the pavement of
half-obliterated tombstones; by the long echoes of the visitors’
footsteps; by the wicket-gate, that seems to shut the moving world out
of that retirement; by the grave rooks and jackdaws that have built
their nests in steeple crevices, where the after-hum of the chimes
reminds them, perhaps, of the wind among the boughs of lofty trees; by
the ancient scraps of palace and gateway; by the ivy again, that has
grown to be so thick and strong; by the oak, famous in all that part,
which has struck its mighty root through the Bishop’s wall; by the
Cathedral organ, whose sound fills all that space, and all the space it
opens in the charmed imagination.
There may be flaws in this whole, if it be examined, too closely. It may
not be improved by the contemplation of the shivering choristers on a
winter morning, huddling on their gowns as they drowsily go to scamper
through their work; by the drawling voice, without a heart, that
drearily pursues the dull routine; by the avaricious functionary who
lays aside the silver mace to take the silver pieces, and who races
through the Show as if he were the hero of a sporting wager. Some
uncomfortable doubts may, under special circumstances, obtrude
themselves, of the practical Christianity of the head of some particular
Foundation. He may be a brawler, or a proud man, or a sleek, or an
artful. He may be usually silent, in the House of Lords when a Christian
minister should speak, and may make a point of speaking when he should
be silent. He may even be oblivious of the truth; a stickler by the
letter, not the spirit, for his own purposes; a pettifogger in the
supreme court of God’s high law, as there are pettifoggers in the lower
courts administering the laws of mortal man. Disturbing recollections
may arise, of a few isolated cases here and there, where country curates
with small incomes and large families, poor gentlemen and scholars, are
condemned to work, like blind horses in a mill, while others who do not
work get their rightful pay; or of the inconsistency and indecorum of
the Church being made a Robe and Candlestick question, while so many
shining lights are hidden under bushels, and so many black-cloth coats
are threadbare. The question may present itself, by remote chance,
whether some shovel-hats be not made too much on the model of the
banker’s shovel with which the gold is gathered on the counter, and too
little in remembrance of that other kind of shovel that renders ashes
unto ashes, and dust to dust. But, on the whole, the visitor will
probably be content to say, “the time was, and this old Cathedral saw
it, when these things were infinitely worse; they will be better; I will
do all honor to the good that is in them, (which is much), and I will do
what in me lies for the speedier amendment of the bad.”
In this conclusion, we think the visitor of the old Cathedral would be
right. But, it is important to bring to the knowledge of all visitors of
old Cathedrals in England, and of all who stay at home too, the most
gigantic and least known abuse, attaching to those establishments. It is
one which affects, not only the history and learning of the country, and
that powerfully, but the legal rights and titles of all classes—of
every man, woman, and child, rich and poor, great and small, born into
this English portion of this breathing world.
For the purpose of the object on which we now enter, we have consulted a
great mass of documents, and have had recourse to the personal
experience of a gentleman who has made this kind of research his
business. In every statement we make, we shall speak by the card, that
equivocation may not undo us. The proof of every assertion, is ready to
our hand.
The public have lately heard some trifling facts relative to Doctors’
Commons, through the medium of a young gentleman who was articled, by
his aunt, to a proctor there. Our readers may possibly be prepared to
hear that the Registry of the Diocese of Canterbury, in which are
deposited all the wills proved in that large, rich, and populous
district, is a job so enormous as to be almost incredible. That the
Registrars, with deputies, and deputies’ deputies, are sinecurists of
from sixteen to seventeen thousand pounds, to seven or eight thousand
pounds, a-year; that the wills are not even kept secure from fire; that
the real working men are miserably paid out of the rich plunder of the
public; that the whole system is one of greed, corruption, and
absurdity, from beginning to end. It is not, however, with the Registry
of Canterbury that our business lies at present, but with the Registries
and Peculiars of other dioceses, which are attached to the old
Cathedrals throughout Great Britain, and of which our readers may be by
no means prepared to hear what we shall have to tell.
Let us begin by setting forth from London on a little suppositious
excursion—say with Mr. William Wallace, of the Middle Temple and the
Royal Society of Antiquaries.
Mr. William Wallace, for the purpose of a literary pursuit in which he
is engaged, involving the gratification of a taste he has for the
history of old manners and old families, is desirous, at his own proper
cost and charge, to search the registers in some Cathedral towns, for
wills and records. Having heard whispers of corruption in these
departments, and difficulty of search, Mr. Wallace arms himself with
letters from the Bishops of those places. Putting money in his purse
besides, he goes down, pretty confidently.
Mr. William Wallace arrives at Cathedral number one; and, after being
extremely affected, despite a heavy shower of rain, by the contemplation
of the building, inquires for the Registrar. He is shown a very handsome
house in the Cathedral-close—a house very superior to the
Bishop’s—wherein the Registrar resides. For, the Registrar keeps a
first rate roof over his own head, though he keeps his deeds in a
dilapidated Gate-house; at which he takes toll to the amount of seven
thousand a-year; and where, as at other toll-houses, “no trust” is the
rule; for he exacts his fees beforehand.
Mr. William Wallace now learns that, locally, the Registrar is a person
of almost inordinate power; besides his seven thousand-pound-per-annum
place, he is Chapter Clerk, Town Clerk, Clerk to the Magistrates—a
Proctor, moreover, in boundless practice. He lives in great state; he
keeps horses, carriages, dogs, and a yacht; he is—could he be anything
else?—a staunch tory; he generally proposes the tory members for the
county, and has been known to pay the entire electioneering expenses of
a favorite tory candidate. Mr. Wallace, although fortified with a letter
bearing the mitred seal of the Bishop of the diocese, feels that he is
about to come in contact with a great power; an awful something that is
not to be trifled with; one of the noblest institutions of our land, who
is a very Miller of Dee, and accountable to nobody.
With a due sense of the importance of this outside buttress of the
Church, Mr. Wallace presents himself with the Bishop’s letter. The
Registrar storms, and takes it extremely ill. He appears to confound Mr.
Wallace with his own foot-boy. He says the Bishop has no power to
interfere with him, and he won’t endure it. He says the Bishop don’t
know what harm may come of showing wills. He can’t make out, what people
want to see wills for. He grudgingly concedes some obstructed search, on
the usual terms; namely, two guineas per day for all the days a
clerk—not fond of any sort of fatigue—may choose to take in making any
particular search. “But perhaps you will allow me to look at the
indexes?” asks Mr. Wallace. “That’s of no use,” is the reply, “for a
great many of the years are missing; and in those we have got, a great
many wills are not entered. We often have to spend two months in finding
a will.” Our friend then performs a little mental arithmetic:—two
months—or, even say fifty days—means one hundred guineas, to ferret
out one will. Complete indexes would only occasion ten minutes’ search,
equal to one day, or, according to the Registrar’s tariff, two guineas.
Mr. Wallace then draws the inevitable conclusion, that bad indexes
partly occasion the inordinate income of the Registrar, whose manifest
interest it is to keep them as imperfect as possible. One little trait
of the very early volumes (the earliest wills are dated A. D. 1180,) is
as quaint, as it is productive to the Registrar: the names of the
testators are arranged—alphabetically, it is true—but under the
Christian instead of the Surnames. Imagine the number of days, or
couples of guineas, that would drop into the Registrar’s coffers, for
picking out one particular John Smith from the thousands of “Johns,”
under the letter “J!” Since the year 1800, the index is better: indeed
it is almost as available as the old catalogues of the British Museum,
though not quite so perfect.
All this was despair to Mr. William Wallace, who modestly hinted that
his archæological necessities pressed him to ask admission to the actual
depository of the wills. The Registrar was petrified with astonishment.
His figure expanded with a burst of indignation, which presently
exploded in the interrogative interjection, “What?” that went off, like
the sharp crack of a rifle.
What? Exhibit, to any living soul, the dilapidative neglect, the hideous
disorder, the wilful destruction of documents, involving the transfer of
the property, personal and landed, of seven counties; and which he, the
Registrar, obtains seven thousand pounds per annum for preserving
carefully, and arranging diligently! Why, only last year the
Archæological Institute of Great Britain, itself, was peremptorily
refused admission; and was it likely that the Registrar would allow Mr.
William Wallace—the friend of a mere Bishop—to be turned loose, to
browse at will upon the waste the Registrar and his predecessors had
committed and permitted?
But what will not an enthusiastic antiquary dare, in his loved pursuit?
Mr. Wallace was bold enough to hint that a Bishop had perhaps some power
in his diocese—even over a Registrar. This appeared in a degree to lull
the tempest; and after all storms there is a calm. The Registrar
reflected. There was nothing very formidable in the applicant’s
appearance; he had not the hungry look of a legacy or pedigree hunter—a
foolish young fellow, perhaps, with a twist about old manners and
customs: and, in short, he may take a look at the repositories.
Up a narrow stair, under the guidance of a grumpy clerk, our persevering
Middle Templar wends. In a long room, over the arches of the gateway, he
sees parallel rows of shelves laden with wills: not tied up in bundles,
not docketed, not protected in any way from dust or spiders by the
flimsiest covering. Only the modern wills are bound up; but—not to
encroach upon the Registrar’s hard earnings—the backings of the
bindings are composed of such original wills as were written on
parchment. These are regularly cut up—that is, wilfully destroyed—for
bookbinding purposes!
Mr. Wallace sees, at a glance, that he may as well try to find a lost
shell on a sea-shore, or a needle in a haystack, as attempt to discover
what he is desirous of picking out of this documentary chaos. He looks
round in mute grief; his archaic heart is heavy; he understands,
exactly, how Rienzi felt amidst the Ruins of Rome, or the daughters of
Jerusalem when they wept. Wherever he turns his eyes, he sees black,
barbarous Ruin. In one corner, he observes decayed boxes filled with
rotten wills; in another, stands a basket, containing several lumps of
mediæval mortar, and a few brick-bats of the early pointed style—the
edges, possibly, of some hole in the wall too large for even poor seven
thousand a-year to shirk the stopping of. Despite the hints of the clerk
that his time is valuable, Mr. Wallace is contemplating these relics
with the eager gaze of an F.S.A., when he descries, hanging over the
edge of the basket, something like an ancient seal. He scrutinizes it
intensely—there is a document attached to it. He rescues it from the
rubbish.
“What can this be?” asks Mr. Wallace with glistening eye.
“Oh!” answers the clerk, with listless indifference, “nothing of any
consequence, I’m sure.”
By this time, Mr. Wallace has found out that this “nothing of any
consequence,” is a Charter of King William the Conqueror; the identical
instrument by which the See of Dorchester was transferred to
Lincoln—that’s all! The broken seal is not of “much consequence”
either. Oh, no!
Now it happens that there is only one impression of the great seal of
the Great Norman extant, and that is in the British Museum, broken in
half; this, being a counterpart, supplies the entire seal! Such is the
priceless historical relic found in the year 1850, by chance, in a
lime-basket, in the very place where it ought to have been as zealously
preserved as if it had been the jewel of a diadem!
But, other treasures—equally of “no consequence,” and about to be
carried off by bricklayers’ laborers, to where rubbish may be shot—are
dug out by Mr. William Wallace:—Item, a bundle of pardons from King
John to certain barons and bishops: Item, a Confession of the Protestant
Faith made on his death-bed by Archbishop Toby Matthew, hitherto
supposed by his biographers to have died a Catholic: Item, a
contemporary poem on the Battle of Bosworth. The Registrar’s clerk is of
opinion, when these are shown to him, that “they an’t worth much,” but
growlingly saves them, on remonstrance, and bundles them into his desk;
where we trust they still remain; and whence we hope they may be rescued
by the proper authorities.
As Mr. Wallace follows his surly guide up the stairs of the Gate-house,
the rain patters sharply against the casements, and a fusty, damp odor
emerges from the upper story. Under a broken roof, and a ceiling being
unplastered in huge patches by time and rain, in the top room, lie—or,
more correctly, rot—the wills of the Archdeaconry of Blowe; a
“Peculiar” of the diocese. The papers below stairs are merely
worm-eaten, spider-woven, dusty, ill-arranged; but, compared with those
which Mr. Wallace now sees—and smells—are in fastidious glass-case
order. After dodging the rain-drops which filter through the ceiling,
down among the solemn injunctions of the dead, Mr. Wallace is able to
examine one or two bundles. Mildew and rot are so omnipotent in this
damp depository, that the shelves have, in some places, broken and
crumbled away. A moment’s comparison between the relative powers of wood
and paper, in resisting water, will give a vivid idea of the condition
of the wills in this Archdiaconal shower-bath. The comers of most of the
piles are as thoroughly rounded off, as if a populous colony of water
rats (the ordinary species could not have existed there) had been dining
off them since the days of King Stephen. Others are testamentary
agglomerations, soddened into pulp,—totally illegible and inseparable;
having been converted by age, much rain, and inordinate neglect, into
post-mortem papier maché.
All these, are original wills: no such copies of them—which Registrars
are enjoined to provide—having been made by the predecessors of the
present pluralist. In order that the durability of parchment should be
of no avail in arresting the most complete destruction within the scope
of possibility, it is the sheepskin testaments of this collection that
are regularly shredded to bind up the modern wills ranged in books
below.
The very sight of this place, shows the futility of anything like
research. Mr. Wallace examines a few of the documents, only to see their
extreme historical as well as local importance; turns away; and descends
the stairs.
“Thus, then,” says Mr. William Wallace solemnly, as he takes a parting
look at the ancient Gate-house, “are documents, involving the personal
and real property of Seven English Counties, allowed to crumble to
destruction; thus, is ruin brought on families by needless litigation;
thus, do Registrars roll in carriages, and Proctors grow rich; thus, are
the historical records of the great English nation doomed—by an officer
whom the nation pays the income of a prince to be their conservator—to
rottenness, mildew, and dust.”
Mr. Wallace having added nothing to the object of his pursuits and
inquiries, in the Registry of this Cathedral number one, departed at
once for Cathedral number two. How he fared there, the reader shall soon
learn.
MR. WILLIAM WALLACE, having taken some repose in the bosom of his
family, and having recruited his nervous system, impaired for the moment
by the formidable demonstrations made in unimpeachable Ecclesiastical
Registry number one, resolved on making a visit to unimpeachable
Ecclesiastical Registry number two; upheld by the consideration that,
although an Ecclesiastical Registry is a fine Institution, for which any
Englishman would willingly die; and without which he could, in no
patriotic acceptation worth mentioning, be an Englishman at all; still,
that the last wills and testaments of Englishmen are not exactly
waste-paper, and that their depositaries ought, perhaps to be kept as
dry—say as skittle grounds, which are a cheaper luxury than Registries,
with the further advantage that no man need frequent them unless he
likes: whereas, to Registries he must go.
The literary object which Mr. Wallace had in view, in this second
expedition, beckoned him to the North of England. “Indeed,” said Mr.
Wallace, pausing. “Possibly, to the second city of England; an
Archbishopric; giving one of the princes of the blood his title;
enjoying the dignity of a Lord Mayor of its own; an ancient and notable
place; renowned for its antiquities; famous for its Cathedral;
possessing walls, four gates, six posterns, a castle, an assembly-room,
and a Mansion House; this is surely the place for an unimpeachable
Registry!”
He arrived at the venerable city of his purpose, at ten minutes past
three P. M., according to Greenwich, or at three-ten, according to
Bradshaw.
Our traveler’s first proceeding, was, to take a walk round the walls,
and gratify his fancy with a bird’s-eye-view of the unimpeachable
registry. He could hardly hit upon the roof of that important building.
There was a building in a severe style of architecture—but it was the
jail. There was another that looked commodious—but it was the mansion
house. There were others that looked comfortable—but they were private
residences. There appeared to be nothing in the way of Registry,
answering to the famous monkish legend in a certain Chapter-House:
As shines the rose above all common flowers,
So above common piles this building towers.
Yet such a building must be somewhere! Mr. Wallace went into the town
and bought a Guide-book, to find out where.
He walked through the quiet narrow streets, with their gabled houses,
craning their necks across the road to pry into one another’s affairs;
and he saw the churches where the people were married; and the
habitations where the doctors lived, who were knocked up when the people
were born; and he accidentally passed the residence of Mrs. Pitcher, who
likewise officiated on those occasions; and he remarked an infinity of
shops where every commodity of life was sold. He saw the offices of the
lawyers who made the people’s wills, the banks where the people kept
their money, the shops of the undertakers who made the people’s coffins,
the church-yards where the people were buried, but not the Registry
where the people’s wills were taken care of. “Very extraordinary!” said
Mr. Wallace. “In the great city of a great ecclesiastical see, where all
kinds of moving reverses and disasters have been occurring for many
centuries, where all manner of old foundation and usage, piety, and
superstition, were, and a great deal of modern wealth is, a very
interesting and an unimpeachable Registry there must be, somewhere!”
In search of this great public edifice, the indefatigable Mr. Wallace
prowled through the city. He discovered many mansions; but he could
not satisfy himself about the Registry.
The uneasiness of Mr. Wallace’s mind increasing with the growth of his
suspicion that there must surely be a flaw in the old adage, and that
where there was a will (and a great many wills) there was no way at all,
he betook himself to the Cathedral-close. Passing down an uncommonly
pure, clean, tidy little street, where the houses looked like a tasteful
sort of missionary-subscription-boxes, into which subscribers of a
larger growth were expected to drop their money down the chimneys, he
came by a turnstile, into that haven of rest, and looked about him.
“Do you know where the Registry is?” he asked a farmer-looking man.
“The wa’at!” said he.
“The Registry; where they keep the wills?”
“A’dinnot know for shower,” said the farmer, looking round. “Ding! If I
shouldn’t wondther if thot wur it!”
Mr. Wallace concealed his disparaging appreciation of the farmer’s
judgment, when he pointed with his ash-stick to a kind of shed—such as
is usually called a lean-to—squeezing itself, as if it were (with very
good reason) ashamed, into the south-west corner of the cross, which the
ground-plan of the cathedral forms, and sticking to it like a dirty
little pimple. But, what was his dismay, on going thither to inquire, to
discover that this actually WAS the unimpeachable Registry; and that a
confined den within, which would have made an indifferent chandler’s
shop, with a pestilent little chimney in it, filling it with smoke like
a Lapland hut, was the “Searching Office.”
Mr. Wallace was soon taught that seven thousand pounds per annum is,
after all, but a poor pittance for the Registrar of a simple bishopric,
when calculated by the ecclesiastical rule of three; for the registry of
Cathedral number two, produces to its fortunate patentees twenty
thousand per annum; about ten thousand a year for the Registrar who does
nothing, and the like amount for his Deputy who helps him.
The portentous personage to whom Mr. Wallace was accredited, received
him in state in the small office surrounded by a Surrogate (apparently
retained on purpose to cross-examine Mr. Wallace) and the clerks. Mr.
Wallace mentioned that he believed the Archbishop had written to the
Deputy-Registrar to afford him every facility in consulting the
documents under his charge. The Deputy Registrar owned that the
Archbishop had done so, but declared that the Archbishop had no
jurisdiction whatever over him; and, claiming as he did, complete
immunity from, and irresponsibility to, all human control, he begged to
say that his Grace the Archbishop, in presuming to write to the
high-authorities of that unimpeachable Registry on such a subject, had
taken a very great liberty. Mr. William Wallace inquired if that was to
be the answer he was expected to convey to the Archbishop? bowed, and
was about to retire, when the awful Deputy recalled him. What did he
want to search for? Mr. Wallace repeated that his object was wholly
literary and archæological. The chief clerk who here came in as a
reinforcement, was so good as to intimate that he “didn’t believe a word
of it.” Whereupon a strong opinion was added that Mr. Wallace wanted
surreptitiously to obtain pedigrees, and to consult wills. A powerful
battery of cross-questionings was then opened by the heavier
authorities, aided by a few shots from the light-bob, or skirmishing
party—the clerk. But had Mr. William Wallace been his great ancestor,
he could not have held his position against such odds more firmly. At
length the preliminaries of a treaty were proposed by the enemy, the
terms of which were that Mr. Wallace should be allowed to consult any
records dated before the year one thousand four hundred! This was
demured to as utterly useless. Negotiations were then resumed, and the
authorities liberally threw in another century, out of the fullness of a
respect for the Archbishop, which they had refrained from condescending
to express;—Mr. Wallace might consult documents up to the year fifteen
hundred.
With this munificent concession, Mr. Wallace was obliged to be
satisfied, and proceeded to venture on another stipulation:—
The researches which he had proposed to himself at this Cathedral number
two, were elaborate and complicated; they would require such facilities
as had been asked on his behalf by the Archbishop. Could he have access
to the documents themselves?
The effect which this simple request produced in the office, was
prodigious! A small schoolboy who should, at dinner, ask for a piece of
the master’s apple-pie; or a drummer on parade, who should solicit from
his captain a loan of five shillings, could not produce a more sublime
degree of astonishment, than that which glared through the smoke from
the faces of the deputy-registrar, the surrogate, the chief clerk, and
all the junior clerks, then and there assembled. The effect produced
amounted to temporary petrefaction; the principals neither spoke nor
moved; the subordinates left off writing and poking the fire. So
superlative was the audacity of the request, that it paralyzed the
pendulum of that small, rusty, dusty, smoky old ecclesiastical clock,
and stopped the works!
Refusal in words was not vouchsafed to Mr. William Wallace; neither did
he need that condescension. The silent but expressive pantomine was
enough. As the Eastern culprit receives his doom by the speechless
gesture of the judge’s hand across his own neck; so Mr. William Wallace
fully understood that, access to the record depositories of the province
appertaining to Cathedral number two, was nearly equivalent to getting
into a freemason’s lodge after it has been “tiled,” or to obtaining
admission to St. Paul’s cathedral without two-pence.
He therefore waved as perfectly impossible that item of the treaty. For
the public, however, the evidence of that gentleman is hardly necessary
to bring them acquainted with the manner in which the trust imposed on
the Registrar and his Deputy is performed; for while the Deputy
Registrar and Mr. William Wallace are settling their differences over
the next clause of their treaty, we shall dip into the reports of the
Ecclesiastical Commission issued in 1832, to show what the state of
things was at that time; and to any one who can prove that those
venerable documents have been by any means rescued from decay since that
year, the public will doubtless be much obliged. At page one hundred and
seventy of the report, Mr. Edward Protheroe, M.P., states, on oath, that
in the instance of every Court he had visited the records suffered more
or less from damp and the accumulation of dust and dirt. Then, speaking
of the Registry of this same Cathedral number two, he declares its
documents to have been in a scandalous state. “I found them,” he
continues, “perfectly to accord with the description I had received from
various literary and antiquarian characters who had occasion to make
searches in the office; and I beg leave to remark that the place must
have been always totally inadequate as a place of deposit for the
records, both as to space and security.” Some of the writings he found
in two small cells, “in a state of the most disgraceful filth;” others
in “two apertures in the thick walls, scarcely to be called windows; and
the only accommodation for these records are loose wooden shelves, upon
which the wills are arranged in bundles, tied up with common strings,
and without any covering to them; exposed to the effect of the damp of
the weather and the necessary accumulation of dirt.” To these
unprotected wills the Deputy Registrar was perhaps wise in his
generation to deny access; for Mr. Protheroe says in addition that, “if
it was the object of any person to purloin a will, such a thing might be
accomplished.” Perfectly and safely accessible copies might be made, at
“an expense quite trifling.” What? Mr. Protheroe, would you rob these
poor Registrars of a shilling of their hard earnings, just to save
landed and other property, of some millions value, from litigation and
fraud? Would you discount their twenty thousand a year by even a
fraction per cent?
The clause of the treaty, offensive and defensive, which was being
negotiated all this while, between the Deputy Registrar and his visitor,
was drawn up by the former in these concise words, “How long do you want
to be here?”
That, Mr. Wallace replied, would depend upon the facilities afforded
him, the condition of the calendars and indexes, and the assistance he
might be allowed to call in. After much battling, the conference ended
by Mr. William Wallace, and a friend who accompanied him, being allowed
to set to work upon the calendars of such wills as had been deposited
before the year 1500.
The two antiquaries would have commenced their researches immediately;
only, on examining their dress, they found it in such a state of filth
from the smoke with which the office had been filled during the
arrangement of this important compact, that they were obliged to return
to the hotel to change their linen. The prospect of spending a week in
such a place was not altogether agreeable. Mr. Wallace did not enjoy
the notion of being smoke-dried; and of returning to the Middle Temple a
sort of animated ham. A sojourn in the place was not to be thought of
without terror; yet the poor clerks endured their smoking fate with
fortitude. Use was to them a second nature; and every man connected with
these Registries must be completely inured to dust. But the man of the
Middle Temple was a kind of knight-errant in the matter of rescuing
ancient documents from their tombs of filth; and not to be daunted. He
and his friend opened the campaign directly in the face of the enemy’s
fire—which, so great was their ardor, they only wished would become a
little more brisk and less smoky.
That day and the next day they bored on with patience and perseverance
through every obstacle. When they found in the calendar a reference to
what they wanted, every possible obstacle was thrown in their way. The
required document was either lost, or had been stolen, or had strayed.
Nor was there the slightest reason to doubt that this was true. It was
well known to the searchers that one class of documents at least had
been actually made away with by a former Deputy Registrar. Dr. Thelwall,
of Newcastle, wrote in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1819, page four
hundred and ninety:—“It is a fact well known that, by a Canon of James
the First, the clergyman of every parish was required to send a copy of
the Register annually to the Bishop of the Diocese. The most shameful
negligence is attributable to the person (the Deputy Registrar) in whose
keeping they have been placed. Indeed I have some reason to suppose
this, as I lately saw in the possession of a friend, a great number of
extracts from the Register of a certain parish in this neighborhood,
and, on questioning him as to the way in which he became possessed of
them, I was informed they were given to him by his cheesemonger, and
that they were copies forwarded by the clergyman of the parish to the
proper officer in a bordering diocese, and had been allowed through the
negligence of their keeper to obtain the distinguished honor of wrapping
up cheese and bacon.”
The sale of Records, for waste paper, was the mode adopted to revenge
the meanness of the legislature, in not providing the under-paid
Registrars with remuneration for this addition to their duties. Was it
possible to keep life and soul together upon the ten or fifteen thousand
sterling per annum which these two poor fellows were then obliged to
starve upon? Certainly not! Therefore, to eke out a wretched existence,
they found themselves driven to sell the property of the public, if not
for the necessaries, for the luxuries, of life. They had, perhaps,
managed to keep their families, by a rigid, pinching economy in
bread—dry bread; but to butter it; to indulge themselves with the
proper diet of even Church mice, they were obliged to dispose of
paper—worth, perhaps, thousands and thousands of pounds to the parties
whose names were inscribed on it—at a few pence per pound, to the
cheesemonger.
From this doom of some of the parochial records of the province, Mr.
William Wallace inferred the degree of care and exactitude with which
the wills were kept. Previous knowledge had prepared him for it; but he
was not prepared to find that the whole of another and most important
class of records, up to a comparatively late date, had been abstracted,
in the lump, from the Registry of this Cathedral number two. The case
was this:—
In the course of his investigations, it was necessary for him to refer
to a “marriage allegation,”—that is, a copy of the statement made by a
bridegroom previous to converting himself, by the help of the Bishop’s
license, into a husband. He then learnt that most of such documents are
the “private property” of one of the clerks, who kept them in his own
private house; that he had bought them of a deceased member of the
Herald’s College, and that for each search into them he charged
according to a sliding scale, arranged according to the station of the
applicant, the maximum of which was five pounds for the simple search,
and five pounds more if what the party wanted were found. The English of
this is, that the present custodier of these papers purchased of a dead
Herald what did not belong to him; and what there could have been no
difficulty whatever in restoring to the true owner; (because no one
could have known better than the purchaser that they were public
property); and that their proper place was not his private house, but
the provincial Registry. The produce of this abstraction is an illegal
income better possibly than the legal gains of an Admiral or a
Government Commissioner; double that of a physician in good practice, or
of a philanthropist in easy circumstances,—and treble that of our best
dramatist, or our best poet.
Besides these hindrances, which could not be helped, a certain number of
wilful obstructions were thrown in the way of our inquiring friends,
because they had been desired by the Archbishop to be placed on the fee
free-list. They were watched by the entire office; for it became Argus
for the occasion. Remarks of a satirical character were discharged
point-blank from behind the desks, whenever a good opening occurred. The
non-paying searchers were “in the way”—(this was true, so unfit is the
apartment for public accommodation); “what people got they ought to pay
for, as other people did.” Spies slid silently out from behind the
ramparts, or desks, to look over their shoulders, and to see that they
did not purloin any information posterior to the fifteenth century.
Mr. William Wallace stood all this manfully; but his ally was obliged to
retire at the expiration of the second day. Mr. William Wallace at
length found he could not advance the objects of his inquiries any more
efficiently at this Cathedral number two, than he had advanced them at
Cathedral number one; so, at the end of a week, he beat a dignified
retreat with all the honors of war. He then turned his face towards the
unimpeachable Registry of Cathedral number three, hoping for better
success.
THE core of the inquiry which Mr. William Wallace had a heart, lay
imbedded in the depositories of unimpeachable Ecclesiastical Registry
number three. To the city of that See he therefore repaired, warmed by
that flaming zeal which only burns in the breast of an earnest
antiquary, and which no amount of disappointment can quench. Though
sanguine, even for an antiquity-hunter, the hopes which rebounded from
his previous failures, sunk within him, when he remembered that whereas
he was in former instances fortified with letters of
recommendation—almost of command—from the Bishops of each Diocese; on
this occasion, he had to fight single-handed, (like another St. George,)
the dragons that “guarded” the treasures he sought. He had no better
introduction to the third Deputy-Registrar than an honest purpose; and,
his former experience taught him that that was about as unpromising an
usher into such a Presence as could be imagined. Mr. Wallace therefore
commenced this new attack with no strong presentiment of success.
Strengthened with an ally, in the person of a friendly attorney, Mr.
William Wallace marched boldly to the great functionary’s house, a
splendid edifice in the Cathedral Close, with thirty-three windows in
front, extensive grounds behind, detached stables and a tasteful
boat-house at the edge of what is here called the “Minster Pool.”
Into this great house of a great man, Mr. William Wallace was ushered by
his friend. Nothing could exceed the obsequiousness of the man of law,
and great was the civility of the man of wills. The interview was going
on pleasantly and the antiquary was beginning to believe that at last he
had found a pattern Deputy-Registrar, when the lawyer happened to
mention that Mr. William Wallace was a literary man. Mr. Wallace felt
that this would be fatal—and it was so. He knew the condign contempt
Ecclesiastical Registrars entertained for the literary world, from the
little circumstance of hearing only the week before in another Registry,
the most eminent historian of the present day, and our best archaic
topographer, designated as “contemptible penny-a-liners.” Mr. Wallace
was therefore not at all astonished when the Deputy-Registrar folded up
his smiling countenance into a frown. He evidently knew what was coming.
Literary men never pay, and Mr. William Wallace wanted to consult “his”
registers gratis.
When this shrewd surmise was, by a word from the attorney, realized, the
Registrar struggled hard to smoothe his face again to a condition of
bland composure; but in vain. The wound which had pierced through his
pocket, rankled within. The depravity of literary people in endeavoring
to dig and delve for historical information without paying for the
privilege of benefitting the public by their researches, was too
abominable! The Registrar was so good as to say that he would grant Mr.
Wallace the privilege of consulting any wills he pleased—on the usual
terms: namely, two shillings and sixpence for every document.
With this condescending permission (which placed Mr. Wallace on exactly
the same footing as the great body of the public which had not done
itself the honor of visiting the Deputy-Registrar) he repaired to the
Searching Office. The point he had set himself to ascertain at this
Cathedral Registry number three, hinged upon an authentic attestation of
the decease of the father of a distinguished general under Charles the
First. The name was a very common one in the diocese, and of course
continually occurred in the index. Will after will was produced by the
clerks; half-crown after half-crown fell glibly out of Mr. Wallace’s
pocket. Still no success. This proved an expensive day. Mr. Wallace had
had to pay, in the course of it, twenty-five pounds; although he was not
allowed, as at the other places, to make a single extract.
The income of the office even of Deputy Registrar sometimes admits of
the maintenance of from six to a dozen race-horses, but the expense of
compiling paper calendars could never be tolerated. To make indexes of
wills that have never been catalogued would be quite out of the
question; for the Registrar charges his clients for the time of his
clerks in making searches, and it was owned to Mr. Wallace that it would
take a year (at from one to two guineas per day) to find any will dated
before the year 1526.
The searching office of this Registry was, like the others,
inconvenient, small, and often crowded. The policy of the clerks was,
therefore, to despatch the inquirers as fast as possible, so as to
ensure a rapid change of visitors and a streaming influx of half-crowns.
On the second day of Mr. Wallace’s search the trouble he had given on
the previous day for his money was intelligibly hinted to him. He was
broadly told that he was “very much in the way;” for room was so much
required that some applicants were plainly told that they must “come
again to-morrow.” To others who had not their inquiries ready cut and
dried, in a business form, and who threatened long explanations
respecting testators, a deaf ear was turned, or a pretended search was
made, and they were told “there was no such will in the place.” A
pleasant case occurred on the second morning. An illiterate laborer
tried to make the officials understand that an uncle of his wife had, he
had heard, left him a legacy, and “he wanted to know the rights o’ it.”
He gave the name and the exact date of the death, and a clerk retired
under pretence of searching for the document. In a very short time he
returned with—
“No such will in the place—half-a-crown, please.”
“Half-a-croone?” said the countryman, “Wat vor?”
“Half-a-crown!” repeated the clerk.
“Wat, vor telling me nought?”
“Half-a-crown!” was again let off with a loud explosion, over the stiff
embrasure of white cravat.
“But darn me if oi pay’t,” persisted the expectant legatee.
“Half-a-crown!”
The countryman went on raising a storm in the office, in midst of which
the “Half-a-crown!” minute guns were discharged with severe regularity.
At length, however, the agriculturist was obliged to succumb, and after
a mighty effort to disinter the coin from under a smock-frock, and out
of the depths of a huge pocket and a leather purse, the poor man was
obliged to produce and pay over what was probably a fifth of his week’s
earnings.
This circumstance having attracted Mr. Wallace’s attention and pity, he
took a note of the name of the testator; and, after the inquirer had
left, found it in the Calendar, and by-and-by, by dint of a little
manœuvring, got a sight of the will. In it he actually found that the
poor man had been left a small legacy.
Meanwhile Mr. William Wallace had been actively employed in calling for
wills and paying out half-crowns. It was quite evident from the
calendars that no greater care was taken of paper and parchment here
than in the other Registries. Several wills entered in it, as having
been once in the depository—wherever that was—had against them the
words “wanting” and “lost.” That ancient records should in the course of
centuries fall aside, cannot be wondered at, even in a Registry, which
produces at present to its officers from seven to ten thousand per
annum; but what excuse can there be for the loss of comparatively modern
ones? Certain wills were not to be found of the years 1746; 1750; 1753;
and 1757.
Mr. Wallace soon found that in a place where dropping half-crowns into
the till and doing as little as possible in return for them, is
considered the only legitimate business, he was looked upon even at
twenty-five pounds per day as a sort of bad bargain, who required a
great deal too much for his money. They could not coin fast enough by
Mr. William Wallace, and the Deputy-Registrar indulged the office with
his august presence to inform him, that as he gave so much trouble for
the searches he was making, he must pay, besides two-and-six-pence for
every future search, two guineas per diem for the use of the office!
It happened that the Bishop of Cathedral number three was then in the
city, officiating at an ordination, and to him Mr. William Wallace
determined to apply for relief from this extortion. He enclosed to his
Lordship his letters from other prelates and stated his case. The answer
he received was the Bishop’s unqualified authority to search wherever
and for whatever he wanted in the Registers of his Lordship’s diocese.
Although this letter was addressed by the Bishop to the servant or
deputy of his servant, the Registrar, yet Mr. Wallace’s dear-bought
sagacity had taught him to place very little faith in a Bishop’s power
over his inferiors. As it turned out, he found himself one of those who
are blessed, because, expecting nothing, they are not disappointed. The
Deputy-Registrar received his superior’s mandate with supercilious
sang-froid. The old story—“The Bishop had no jurisdiction whatever
over him,” but this once, &c. &c.
Mr. William Wallace had met in Cathedrals numbers one and two, repulses
and rudeness. But each Cerberus who pretended to guard the documentary
treasures of those dioceses, honestly showed his teeth. They had not
been guilty of deceit. Deputy-Registrar number three was wiser in his
generation. He gave a cold assent to the Bishop’s mandate in Mr.
Wallace’s behalf; but with it such wily instructions to his clerks, as
rendered it as nugatory as if he had put it in his waste basket or had
lighted his cigar. During the two days that half-crowns rained in silver
showers from the Antiquary’s purse, nearly every Will he asked for was
produced; but now, on the third day, when the Bishop’s letter had closed
his purse-strings, Mr. Wallace demanded document after document, and was
told by the “Conservators” of this important kind of public property,
that they had “been lost,” “could not be found,” “mislaid.” But the most
frequent return was, “destroyed at the siege of the City, in the year
1643”—stolen away with the Tomb of Marmion when
“Fanatic Brooke
The fair Cathedral storm’d and took.”
The result of the three days’ investigations stood thus: “During the two
paying days, out of a hundred Wills asked for, eighty were produced.
Throughout the non-paying day, out of ninety Wills asked for, only one
was produced!”
When half-crowns were rife, not one word was said about “the siege of
the City, in the year 1643,” although nearly all the Wills Mr. Wallace
was obliged with a sight of, were dated anterior to that destructive
event.
For some explanation Mr. Wallace repaired to the Deputy-Registrar’s
abode. It was too late. The clever sub. knew what was coming—and
retreated from the field. The servant’s answer to Mr. Wallace was,
“Out of town, sir!”
But Mr. William Wallace was foiled even more completely in another
point: he had a great desire to see where and how the Wills were kept.
He knew their condition in 1832, from what Ulster King-at-Arms said
before the Ecclesiastical Commission, “I consider the records very
dirty; they have not, apparently, been dusted for many years.” The
remarkable result of Mr. Wallace’s urgent inquiries was that not a soul
he asked could, or would, tell in what place the ecclesiastical records
of Cathedral number three were deposited.
Mr. Wallace gave up this investigation in despair and left the city.
The locus of the documents was to him a mystery and a wonder!
The habits of the antiquary do not, however, dispose him to indulge in
listless despair. To find out the secret masses of the records of
Cathedral number three was a task Mr. William Wallace had so earnestly
set himself, that next to his domestic relations and his literary
labors, it grew into one of the duties of his existence; therefore, on
his way to Cathedral number four, he paid another visit to the city of
Cathedral number three, fortified with letters to some of its clergy. To
be sure they could clear up the mystery.
His first application was to one of the Canons. Did he know where the
ecclesiastical records were kept? Well, it was odd, but it never entered
his head to inquire. He really did not know. Perhaps some of the
Chapter officials could tell.
To one of these, hies Mr. Wallace. Even that functionary—whose
courteousness, together with that of his colleague, was pleasant to the
applicant by the force of mere contrast—was equally unable to reveal
the secret. “But surely,” he added, “such a place cannot, when one sets
about it, be so impenetrable a mystery. I have an idea that the Miller
could enlighten you.”
“The Miller?”
“Yes. He knows everything about the town. Try him.”
Mr. Wallace had business at the searching office, and having transacted
it, determined to make another effort in this legitimate quarter. The
following short dialogue occurred between him and the clerk:—“Pray,”
said Mr. Wallace, “where are the Wills kept?”
“That’s not your business!” was the answer. Mr. Wallace returned to the
charge but the clerk became deaf, and went on with some writing,
precisely as if Mr. William Wallace were invisible and inaudible.
The Miller was the only resource. He was from home, and his wife gave
the same answer as everybody else had done. “But,” she said, pointing to
an individual who was sauntering into the Close, “there’s one as can
tell ’ee. He’s a rachetty man—he is.” Without waiting to inquire the
meaning of this strange expression, off starts the record-hunter upon
the new secret. He runs down his game in no time. It consists of a burly
biped, bearing a cage of fine ferrets. Round his person is displayed the
broad insignia of office,—he is a rat-catcher.
Here Mr. William Wallace’s perseverance triumphs. The Rat-catcher knows
all about it. “Why you see, Sir,” he said, “I contracts for the
Registrar.”
“What for?”
“What for? Why, I catches the rats for him at so much a-year.”
“And where do you catch them?”
“Where do I catch them? Why, where the old wills is.”
“And where is that?”
“Where is that? Why, there.”
The Rat-catcher points to a sort of barn that rises from the edge of the
Minster Pool. It has no windows on the ground-floor. On the first-floor
are six—two in the front of the building and four at the
end,—twenty-seven windows less than are displayed in the front of the
Registrar’s beautifully glazed house; but much of the little glass
afforded to the registry is broken. To mend it upon seven thousand
a-year would never do, especially when old parchment is lying about in
heaps. Why pay glaziers’ charges when ancient wills and other
ecclesiastical records keep out wind and weather as well as glass?—for
light is a thing rather to be shunned than admitted into such places.
Accordingly, as the Rat-catcher points to the shed, Mr. Wallace observes
numberless ends of record rolls and bundles of engrossed testaments
poked into the broken windows: in some places variegated with old rags.
Judging from the exterior, and from the contract for rat-catching, the
interior of this depository of the titles of hundreds of thousands of
pounds worth of property, must be an archæological Golgotha, a dark
mouldy sepulchre of parchment and dust.
Lawyers say that there is not an estate in this country with an
impregnable title; in other words, it is on the cards in the game of
ecclesiastical and common law, for any family to be deprived of their
possessions in consequence of being unable to establish a perfect title
to them. How can it be otherwise when the very deeds by which they have
and hold what they enjoy, are left to be eaten by rats, or to be stuffed
into broken windows?
AN antiquary cannot approach the city of Chester from London, even in an
express railway train, without emotions more lively than that class of
observers generally have credit for. Despite a sensation akin to that of
being fired off in a rocket, and a pardonable fancy that the hedges are
endless bands of green ribbon in eternal motion, that the houses, and
cottages, and churches, and trees, and villages, as they dart past the
confines of the carriage window, are huge missiles shot across fields
which are subjected to a rapid dispensation of distorted perspective;
yet these mighty evidences of the Present do not dull his mind to the
Past. He remembers, with wonder, that two thousand years ago, it was
over this identical line of country that the legions of Suetonius lagged
along after they had blunted the scythes of Boadicea, routed her hordes,
and driven her to suicide.
We will not say that our own fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Mr.
William Wallace, retrojected his imagination so far into the past while
crossing the Chester platform with his carpet-bag, because we are led to
believe, from his report to us, that his views were immediately directed
to the more modern times of St. Werburgh, who founded the Abbey of
Chester (once the most splendid in England); seeing that it is in the
still-standing gateway of that obsolete establishment, that the objects
of Mr. Wallace’s especial solicitude are now, and always have been
deposited, since Henry the Eighth erected Chester into a diocese.
His hopes of success in seeking out certain facts from the testamentary
records of this see, were more slender than they had been while entering
upon his errand at the other three cathedrals. He had written to the
bishop for that permission to search which had been by other prelates so
readily granted, but which had been rendered by the respective
Registrars so utterly nugatory, and had received no answer. Awkward
reminiscences of the state of this Registry, as disclosed before the
last Parliamentary Committee on the Ecclesiastical Courts, fell like a
dark shadow over his hopes. Up to the year 1832, the gateway where the
wills are kept was, upon the Deputy Registrar’s own showing, neither
“fire-proof, sufficiently large, nor absolutely free from plunder.” The
searching-office was a part of the gateway; and was as inadequate as
other searching offices. The Chief Registrar in 1837 was a sinecurist in
the seventieth year of office, and was verging towards the hundredth
of his age; having received, in his time, not less than three hundred
and fifty thousand pounds of the public money for doing nothing. The
fees for searches and extracts were heavy, and nobody was allowed, as in
most other Registries, to see how the wills were kept.
Such were the gloomy prepossessions of Mr. William Wallace, as he
approached the archway which held the testamentary treasures of Diocese
Number Four. He sought the searching office in vain, and at length was
fain to address himself to the first passenger—a burly blacksmith—who,
at once, in answer to his inquiry, pointed to a handsome new stone
building, that stood within the Abbey Square.
Mr. William Wallace ascended the steps doubtingly; and when he found
himself in the wide passage of an evidently well-planned public
office—so contrary was the whole aspect of the place to his
preconceptions of it, and to his previous experience of other
ecclesiastical Registries—that he would have retired, had not the
words, “Searching Office,” as plain as paint and capitals could make
them, stared him full in the face from a door on his right. This he
boldly opened, and beheld a handsome apartment, so mounted with desks,
counters, and every appurtenance for public convenience, as to put him
in mind of the interior of a flourishing assurance office. “The room,”
says Mr. William Wallace, in his report to us, “is furnished with a
counter of ample size, extending round it, on which you examine the
indexes. On calling for one or two modern wills, the clerks brought me a
substantial, well-bound book, in which he informed me all modern wills
have been, since the appointment of the present Registrar, enrolled at
length, in a round text, so distinct and plain, that illiterate persons
might read them; and not engrossed, so as to become a source of revenue,
as at Doctor’s Commons, where the unlearned, in what is called
‘court-hand,’ are obliged to call in the aid of a clerk, and disburse a
fee for the wills to be read to them. I was informed that I could see
the originals on giving a satisfactory reason to the Registrar, or, in
his absence, to a principal clerk. So promptly is business done here,
that I found the wills which had been received from Manchester and other
places that day, had been already indexed—very different to York, where
wills are sometimes not indexed for six or eight months, and,
consequently, often not at all. I next inquired for some earlier wills,
and stated that I might probably want to have two or three days’
research, for a literary purpose. On hearing this, the clerk informed me
that the Registrar made no charge under such circumstances, except for
the clerks’ time. I then called for about six early wills, and only one
of the six could not be found. Afterwards I asked for the returns of
several Parish Registers; each set of which are well and substantially
bound in a separate volume; for this a fee of three shillings and
eight-pence is demanded; at York, for the production of a similar
quantity of records, fifteen pounds is the price, without clerks’ fees;
and at Lincoln it would be impossible to collect them at all, many
having been used to bind up modern wills, and for other such purposes.”
Mr. William Wallace, pleasingly surprised at the contrast this Registry
number four presented to others he had visited, and where he had been so
egregiously snubbed, determined to learn and see as much respecting it
as possible. With this view, he applied, without any other introduction
than his card, to the Registrar; whose excellent custom it was, he
understood, to be in attendance daily for several hours. At that time
he was examining witnesses in a case for the Ecclesiastical Court, and
handed the card to the bishop’s secretary, who was also in official
attendance. “That gentleman,” says Mr. Wallace, “immediately came down,
and informed me that the Bishop had written to me, in answer to my
application, two days before, giving me permission to search, at
reasonable hours, and that the Registrar, as was his usual custom, had
not the slightest objection. I then asked to be shown the various parts
of the building, the modes of preserving the records, which request was
granted without the smallest hesitation.”
Our informant then goes on to say that he found the building—which was
raised solely at the expense of the present Registrar, since his
appointment in 1837—conveniently divided into different departments
like the best of the Government offices,—each department legibly
indicated for the benefit of the inquirer, on the different doors.
The manner in which the records are preserved at this Cathedral number
four, is spoken of by our friend with satisfaction. His report to us is
silent on rats, wet, mildew, smoke, broken windows, torn testaments, and
illegible calendars. “Modern wills,” he repeats, “are copied at length
into volumes, by the present Registrar, a practice which I regret is not
adopted at York, Lincoln, Lichfield, Winchester, and other places I have
visited. If wills of an earlier date than that of the enrolment books
are required to be taken out of the office for production in any Court
of Law, &c., an examined copy made for the purpose, is deposited in its
place during its temporary removal from the Registry. The principal
portion of the wills are deposited in a dry, but not a fire-proof
building, in good repair, called the Abbey Gateway; where, during the
office hours, two clerks are constantly kept at work in copying wills
that come in. These are kept in boxes, arranged upon shelves with just
sufficient space to admit them, like drawers; and upon the top of the
wills is a sheet of pasteboard fitting the box, as a further protection
from dust. The wills are alphabetically arranged in the boxes, which are
of uniform size, and contain more or less letters; the first box for
1835, for instance, contains the wills of testators whose names commence
with A. or B. The wills of each letter are placed separately, and are
divided into packets of one month each, so that the exact date of
Probate being known, the will is found immediately.”
Before the period of its renovation, the Registry of Chester was as
inefficient and exacting as the other three we have described. To whom
the merit of the change and the contrast is really due, is not easily to
be ascertained, although the present incumbent of the office must
necessarily have the largest share of credit for it. We suspect,
however, that the proximate impetus of the reform can be traced to the
geographical position of the see. It includes the busiest of the
manufacturing towns, and the most business-like, practical, and
hard-handed examples of the English character. The thorough-going
Manchester or Liverpool legatee would not endure, beyond a certain point
and a certain time, the impositions, delays, destructions, and muddling
confusion of the will offices in the more easy-going districts. Time
with him is cash. What he wants he must have at once, especially if he
pays for it. He may be put off once or twice with a rotten, illegible
index, or a “Come again to-morrow;” but when he once sees that these may
be obviated, he takes care to let there be no delay on his part, and
agitates immediately. To engage a Free Trade Hall, and get up a public
meeting, is with him a matter of no more consideration than scolding
his clerk, or bringing a creditor to book. He has discredited the maxim
that “talking is not doing;” and a constant iteration of pertinent
speeches, ending with stinging “resolutions,” has been found to do
greater feats, to perform much greater wonders than setting
ecclesiastical registries in order. It is possible, therefore, that the
lay authorities of the Chester Registry, having the dread of an
uncompromising community before their eyes, saw their safety in
renovation; and, like sensible men, made it, without that whining
sophistication, that grim tenacity, with which abuses are excused and
clung to, in exact proportion to their absurdity, profitableness, and
injustice.
