given directions for the examination of the priestes
rernayninge in Wisbitche Castle, towardes whom
he would proceede eyther favourablie or severely
according as they gave him occasion by theyre
answers."

The King's next recommendation to the
Judges has been imitated rather extensively
in modern times. His suggestion "towchinge"
public works has been superseded by the far
less agreeable expedient of tolls:—

"Next of all he comanded them to pull downe
all howses and poor cottages for sd he as woodes
and brakes are the dennes and shelters of wilde
beastes, soe are these places the receptacles and
lurkinge holes of theeves, drunkardes and
pillpheringe vagaboundes. He allsoe willed them to
see the lawes and statutes against roagueinge
beggers put in due execution. And that howses
of correction should for that purpose be erected
and mayntayned. And here he toke occasion to
commend Justice Popham of whom he had hearde
reported, that he was soe sharpe and severe
against idle persons, that there was noe like thinge
as a begger in all Som'rsetteshire where he dwellt.
And because high waies and bridges (amongest
other thinges) were of great necessitie and use for
his subjects, he gave the Judges a stricte charge
that they should earnestly stirre uppe, and
compelle the people to the mendinge and maintayninge
of them, addinge further that the repayringe
of these was none of the meanest workes of charitie
and therefore he much merveyled that there haveinge
binne soe much given towardes the indowm't
of hospitalls, allimeshowses, and the like (since his
first cominge to the crowne) that there hath binne
soe litle bestowed to those uses"

At the time King James spoke, London
consisted of about sixty thousand houses, and
a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants,
instead of the two millions and a quarter which
are herded within its boundaries at present.
About that time habitations began to be built
of bricks ; timber, filled up with plaster,
having been the material previously in use.
A building mania appears to have taken
possession of the Londoners ; and King James
" didde with great vehemencie and earnestness
declare himself concerninge

"the extraordinary buyldinge that hath of late times
binne used in the cittie and suburbs of London,
wch excessive enlargemt of the body of this cittie
would (as he saide) in time tende to the utter ruine
and undoeinge of the countrey and all other citties
wthin the realme. The cawse of the great repayre
and accesse to this towne he ascribed to the pride
and vanitie of ladyes and gentle woemen. The
effects whereof (he sd) were noe lesse then the
beggeringe of there husbandes, the losse of theyre
owne creddit (especially in younge woemen who
while they come hether to be married forsooth
doe but marre their reputacion). And finallye
the impov'rishinge and destruction of the poore
countrey which by these meanes is forsaken and
bereft both of the company and comfort of the
better and abler ranke of people, to the utter
ovrthrowe and decaye of all hospitallitie for wch
this kingdome in auncient time hath binne
renowned above all the nations of the earth for the
prevention of wch great mischeifes and
inconveniences he sd his pleasure was that if any man
went abowt or presumed to builde in or abowt the
cittie of London that the builder together w'th his
workemen should be comitted and cast in prison
and the buildinge ovrthrowne and abated."

Unhappy Cubitts and Petos of the
seventeenth century!

King James's peroration is as simple and
concise as that of his successor Victoria:—

"These he sd were the sume of those thinges
wch he had at this time intended to give them in
charge addinge further that allthough he had
heretofore binne a straunger to that court and
place (meaninge the Starre-chamber) yet should
they hereafter enjoye his presence there more
often."

NATIONAL-DEBT DOCTORS.

DR. PRICE, in the preface to his observations
on Reversionary Payments as a means of
paying off the National Debt, remarking on
the prodigious power of Compound Interest,
states, that a penny so improved from our
Saviour's birth, as to double itself every fourteen
years—or (which is nearby the same) put
out to five per cent, compound interest
would in seventeen hundred and seventy-three
years, have increased to more money than
would be contained in one hundred and fifty
millions of globes, each equal to the earth in
magnitude, and all solid gold!

Mr. Morgan, a profound arithmetician, in
checking this astounding calculation,
discovered one of those errors which are meant
—while falsifying details—to verify the general
principle. A penny so improved at compound
interest, as to double itself in fourteen years,
would have accumulated only, Mr. Morgan
declares, to one hundred and seven millions
of golden globes; or forty-three millions fewer
than Dr. Price computed! However correct
these calculations may be, they bring to the
mind of those who have no brains for
complex masses of figures, the chronological
computations quoted by Chevreau in his
"Histoire du Monde," a couple of quarto
volumes published in 1686. One of them
gives as the result of a bewildering complexity
of calculations, the precise day and moment
at which the world was created. The calculator
asserts, " without fear of contradiction,"
(for who is to check his astro-chronological
computation ?) that this great globe was
created " on Friday afternoon, the 6th of
September, at four o'clock precisely."

The Cockers, Walkingames, and De Morgans
of Chevreau's time had no practical
subject on which to expend their arithmetical
fanaticism. They, happy people, had no
National Debt. Modern cypherers, on the
contrary, need not, like them, wear out their
slates and blunt their pencils with calculations
of a purely speculative character. His
late Majesty King William the Third set
them that very large sum, the National Debt.