with duty: though they admitted no ray of
light through that usually opaque material.
Besides which, the Deputation knew, from the
Government Returns, that, under the same
Acts of Parliament, a little unglazed hole in a
wall, made for a cat to creep through, and a
little trap in a cellar to shoot coals down, had
been solemnly decided to be windows. Therefore,
they were so much relieved by this
perforated-zinc discovery, that the good and
indefatigable DOCTOR SOUTHWOOD SMITH (who
was one of the deputation) was seen, by
PRIVATE JOHN TOWLER of the Second Grenadier
Guards, sentry on duty at the Treasury,
to fall upon the neck of MR. TOYNBEE (who
was another of the deputation) and shed tears
of joy in Parliament Street.

But, the President of the Carpenters' Society,
a man of rule and compasses, whose organ of
Veneration appears (in respect of Red Tape)
to have been imperfectly developed, doubted.
And he, writing to the Stamp Office on the
point, caused more Red Tape to be spun into
this piece of information, "that perforated
plates of zinc would be chargeable if so
perforated as to afford light, but not if so as to
serve the purpose of ventilation only!" It
not being within the knowledge of the
Carpenters' Society (which was a merely practical
body) how to construct perforations of such a
peculiar double-barreled action as at once to
let in air and shut out light, the Right
Honorable Red Tape, M.P., himself, was
referred to, for an explanation. This, he gave
in the following skein, which has justly been
considered the highest specimen of the
manufacture. "There has been no mistake, as the
parties suppose, in stating that openings for
ventilations might be made which would not
be chargeable as windows, and I cannot think
it at all inconsistent with such a statement to
decline expressing, beforehand, a general
opinion as to whether certain openings when
made would or would not be considered as
windows, and as such liable to charge."

To crown all, with a wreath of blushing
Tape of the first official quality, it may be
briefly mentioned, that no existing Act of
Parliament made any such exception, and
that it had no existence out of Tape. For, a
local act, for Liverpool only, was afterwards
passed, exempting from the Window Tax
circular ventilating apertures, not exceeding
seven inches in diameter; provided, that if
they were made in a direct line, they should
be protected by a grating of cast-iron, the
interstices thereof not exceeding one quarter
of an inch in width.

One other choice sample of the best Red
Tape presents itself in the nefarious history
of the Window Tax. In July of the same
year, LORD ALTHORP—whose name is ever to
be respected, as having, perhaps, less association
with Red Tape than that of any Minister
whomsoever—made a short speech in the
House of Commons, descriptive of an enactment
he then introduced, for allaying something
of the indignation which this tax had
raised. It was, he said, "a clause, enabling
persons to open fresh windows in houses at
present existing, without any additional
charge. Its only effect is, to prevent an
increase of the revenue, in the case of houses
already existing." On the faith of this statement,
numbers of house-occupiers opened new
windows. The instant the clause got into
the Government offices, it was immeshed in a
very net of Red Tape. The Stamp Office,
in its construction of it, substituted existing
occupiers, for existing houses; into the clause
itself were introduced, before it became law,
words, confining this privilege to persona
"duly assessed for the year ending 5th April,
1835." What followed? Red Tape made
the discovery that no one who took
advantage of that clause, and opened new
windows, WAS duly assessed in 1835-—the
whole Government Assessment: made, be
it remembered, by Government Assessors:
having been loosely and carelessly made—and
all those openers of new windows, upon the
faith of that plain speech of a plain gentleman,
were surcharged; to the increase of the
revenue, the dishonour of the public character
of the country, and the very canonisation of
Red Tape.

For the collection and clear statement of
these facts, we are indebted to an excellent
pamphlet reprinted, at the time, from the
"WESTMINSTER REVIEW." The facts and the
subject are worthy of one another.

O give your public functionary who delights
in Red Tape, a good social improvement to
deal with! Let him come back to his Tape-
wits, after being frightened out of them, for a
little while, by the ravages of a Plague; and
count, if you can, the miles of Red Tape he
will pile into barriers, against—a General
Interment Bill, say, or a Law for the
suppression of infectious and disgusting nuisances!
O the cables of Red Tape he will coil away
in dispatch boxes, the handcuffs he will make
of Red Tape to fetter useful hands; the
interminable perspectives of Exchequers, Woods
and Forests, and what not, all hung with Red
Tape, up and down which he will languidly
wander, to the weariness of all whose hard
fate it is, to have to pursue him!

But, give him something to play with—give
him a park to slice away—a hideous scarecrow
to set up in a public place, where it may become
the ludicrous horror of the civilised earth—a
marble arch to move—and who so brisk as
he! He will rig you up a scaffolding with
Red Tape, and fall to, joyfully. These are the
things in which he finds relief from unlucky
Acts of Parliament that are more troublesome
improvements than they were meant
to be. Across and across them, he can spin
his little webs of Red Tape, and catch summer
flies: or, near them, litter down official
dozing-places, and roll himself over and over
in Red Tape, like the Hippopotamus wallowing
in his bath.