prosperity, and daily happiness or discomfort of a
large body of educated men depend upon his
fiat; and the life and death of thousands of
hapless sufferers may hang upon that slender
and impalpable thread, a midge's policy. If a
permanent officer be able, conscientious,
industrious, he hears others praised for his own acts;
and if he be a midge, he knows that his political
colleagues will be heartily abused for his
incompetence. If his public services depend upon
moral courage, if their proper exercise involve
discussion and possible hostility out of doors,
but one course is open to the midge. He
must from the very nature of things prefer
darkness to light, and his official career is one
long, nervous, timid " hushing up." The
business of his life is to keep his department in
the shade, and make it negatively popular by
dint of quiescence and indifference. His policy
is tortuous and sly, partly from the necessities
of the case, partly because he is a midge.
But it is unscrupulously direct in its aim at
keeping the public in the dark. "Though
parliamentary puppets may come and go, let me be
paid for ever," is the unspoken burden of the
midge's song; and it is not surprising if, to
secure this end, he throws dust into inquiring
eyes, and putting up his men in buckram, his
underlings, to be shot at, merrily burks all
damaging papers and troublesome reports.

Every day tells us of mysterious gaps in
some department, between cause and effect; of
"orders" neglected or defied; of inspections and
examinations being rendered futile; of " moral
influence" misapplied; of refusals to hold
inquiries; of misery, disease, and death; and one
is apt to wonder whether a midge can be at work.
It seems incredible that in the face of a roused
and indignant public opinion the inspectors of
at least one department should still sleep on.
There must be some sort of activity in their
several districts. There must have been some
sort of form kept up between them and the
head office in the times gone by. They
probably made occasional representations as to the
needs of local establishments, and the pinching
ignorance of local functionaries; and if
they did not, it was clearly some one's duty—-
perhaps a midge's—- to reprimand them. But it
would be in strict accordance with all that is
known of midge life, if reports were indorsed
"Put By" if complaints were discouraged, and
if the least watchful and most mealy-mouthed of
inspectors were most popular. To complain of
arrangements under which, say, paupers are
killed, to ask for decent ventilation, and proper
medical attendance and nursing for the sick, is
to cast upon the guardians the odium of spending
money. Altercations and refusals are in
this case possible, and unpopularity certain.
Now guardians, as a class, possess considerable
electoral power, and are nearly always able to
have awkward questions put in the House of
Commons concerning the nature and constitution
of a department which interferes with them

The midge has considerable power for annoyance
over the men whom he wishes to keep quiet
in every department of the State. In all official
arrangements, in the removal from one district
to another, in petty malignity, he can either act
himself, or so pull the strings as to make
his parliamentary chief inflict pain. "Teapot"
subordinates—- that is, officers who are so
absolutely void of offence to those they are sent to
control as to receive testimonials to their urbane
uselessness—- are the men likely to be dear to a
midge's heart. It would be well worth'a midge's
while to incite, to bribe, to threaten this department
into combining the maximum of official
formulary with the minimum of official work,
and so be saved from what is his greatest
horror—- an inquiry into his own functions and
pay. Give a man power over the purse-strings;
let it be seen that he can promote a clerk
or a clerk's son for obsequious compliance
and diligent misdoing; let the painstaking
and conscientious be stigmatised as
"impracticable" and punished accordingly, and it is
marvellous how speedily a department will
mould itself on the midge's model. The few
who stick out are marked men, to be mulct of
income and degraded at the very earliest
opportunity. The midge's handiwork has prospered,
and a grave public scandal arises.

A few people have been choked or
poisoned, or slow torture has been inflicted on the
dying, and a cry is raised throughout the country,
Who is to blame? Inspectors are arraigned;
the parliamentary secretaries or chiefs
questioned in the House of Commons, and the
department heartily abused. But the midge
escapes scot-free. A creature so seemingly
insignificant is never thought of as the real
culprit; and while the officials—- whose career
he has directed, and who have had to choose
between insubordination to their superior and
neglect of their plain duty—- are summoned to
the bar of public opinion, the midge escapes.
In all the comments and strictures upon " the
department," even by those who writhe most
under his sting; in all efforts to alter its
machinery, its mainspring has remained untouched.

How long is this to last? How long are
we to be hoodwinked by the midge family?
How long cajoled into awarding blame to the
wrong men? Let the scandals of the last
few years—- some of which make our social
administration a byword and reproach—- be
read by the light of our midge theory, and
we shall have at least an intelligible solution
of a problem hitherto unsolved. Take the
midge for granted, and all else follows. A famine
comes over the land. A populous and industrious
county is reduced from competence to poverty
the most dire and bitter. Extraordinary means
are taken to meet an extraordinary emergency,
and an act brought in and passed by the government,
having the relief of a vast district and
the employment of thousands for its aim. A
commissioner is selected for his previous
knowledge of the hapless county, and for his
general fitness for the post. The measure just
passed is statesmanlike, and the instrument
well chosen; the Press blows gentle gales