found in the town and forts, for twenty-five
thousand men. Since that period, government
has spent much money on spacious public
buildings, and yet when there were only
twelve thousand soldiers in the island during
the present spring, house-room was declared
to be exhausted. Will any one account for
this? Every private person in Valetta
seemed to be quite able to account for it. It
is thought better that the soldiers should
sleep out of doors than that petty clerk A,
who would be well lodged in two rooms,
should be deprived of any of his twelve, or
that superior clerk B. should not have ample
stabling. The civil service has nine-tenths of
the law:—possession. Large buildings are
let out at absurd and nominal rents to
favourites and clients of the local government;
or, so the little world of Malta said
they were. Even the troops lodged under
canvas, says this world, are lodged in many
cases on a shameful principle. The civil
government has impounded schools and
hospitals to make room for the troops, has
stopped the course of religion, of education,
and charity, rather than encroach an inch
upon the overgrown borders of its own
members and friends.

Nearly one-half of Valetta is government
property, and yet the government has not
borrowed the use of a single house from one
of its own favourites. I mean, of course, the
local government at Malta. The same
government that is letting a palace to a
friend for about fifty pounds a year, pays for
a small house twenty-five pounds a month, in
order to get quarters for the officers.
Schools and hospitals are broken up, but the
Union Club, which is not much better than a
gaming-house, retains the full use of its
spacious premises. A good many years ago,
there was a commission of inquiry into
Maltese abuses. It did good, but there is
already need for another, unless the doings
of the civil government are very much belied.
I have heard enough to make me think that
there is due to our soldiers here a severe
and uncompromising scrutiny into the alleged
jobbery of placemen, with especial reference
to the practice of making buildings that are
public property, subservient to private
purposes. One building, I know—a palace in
itself—is let at a nominal rent to a club;
another is used by a subordinate functionary,
who contrives so to magnify himself that he
fills up the whole. His work used to be
done by his predecessor in two little rooms
over the shop of the librarian; the business
of the office under its present holder has
very much decreased, but how much has
the required space been amplified?

I will tell two or three stories as I heard
them, not vouching for their accuracy, since
my stay in Malta was so short that I have no
right to speak positively on such matters. I
tell them because they show what sort of
stories I found current, and because even if
they be exaggerated, as I think they are—
though it is vowed to me that they are
literally true,—I have seen enough to make
me sure they are not wholly without
foundation.

Some years ago, and within common
memory, there lived in Valetta, as government
architect, surveyor of roads, &c., a
gentleman much respected, who modestly and
faithfully performed his duties for a salary of
one hundred and fifty pounds a year. He
died, and the home government had to send
out a successor. There was then an assistant
in the shop of a London house-decorator, say
of a Mr. Fletcher, of Bond Street, a young
man, say James Mutton, who was said by the
scandalous to be the natural son of a cabinet
minister. Certainly James Mutton, when
the little vacancy occurred in Malta, was
discovered by the English government to have
a genius for architecture, and was sent out
accordingly to Valetta as a member of the
civil service of one of her Majesty's colonies.
Ashamed of his own plebeian name he
borrowed help from that of his old master, and
arrived at Malta as James Mutton Fletcher,
Esquire, government architect, surveyor of
roads, and so forth. He at once displayed
considerable genius for spending money, and
discovered very soon that he had not salary
enough to maintain him properly in the
position of a gentleman.

Representations having been made at home
to that effect, his salary was increased by two
hundred pounds. This addition to his income
increased his responsibilities. Though he
built nothing to speak of, but his own
fortunes, still, as builder of them, he found his old
offices too small, and therefore obtained a large
government building in town as official
residence, and another as a country villa. He
also obtained certain allotments of land for
the nominal rent of three pounds six shillings
a year, upon which he erected his first buildings,
stables of his own. The land being near
the town these stables were let out at rents
that further added one hundred and fifty
pounds to Mr. James Mutton Fletcher's
income. The success of this official thus
became so great that it was presently
proposed to make him a present of a thousand
pounds out of the public funds. Then,
however, there arose out of doors the
strongest opposition. Government desired
to make the grant, and Government
commanded the decision of the council, but
the determined nature of the opposition to
the job made it necessary to appoint a
committee of inquiry. It had been said that the
architect was entitled to a per-centage on all
money spent on public works. It was replied
that all his money had been spent only on
private maintenance and profit, that there
were no public works to show, and that the
report of the committee favoured this opinion.
The local government reported to the home
government all these proceedings, and asked