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 neighbourhood, 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 honour of wrapping
up cheese and bacon."

This mode of "preserving" such documents
is accounted for by Sir William Betham,
Ulster King at Arms, in his evidence before
the Committee of 1832:—he had occasion to
search at Cathedral number two, and went for
the express purpose of searching manuscripts
of Parish Registers. He found them lying
unarranged and unconsultable in the office.
He asked the reason, and was answered that
the Act of Parliament which ordered this class
of Records to be sent to the Bishop's Registry
gave no direction about—(was there ever
such a piece of parliamentary treason against
even the lay children of Mother Church!)—
fees.

The sale of Records, for waste paper, was
the mode adopted to revenge the meanness
of the legislature, in not providing the underpaid
Registrars with remuneration for this
addition to their duties. Was it possible to keep
life and soul together upon the ten or fifteen
thousands 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
cheese-monger.

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.
This manifest abuse is so perfectly established
and recognised, that the fortunate possessor
of these documentary mines of wealth delivers
his little bills for fees on regular printed forms.

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 honours of war.