that it is never, under any circumstances,
permitted to remain vacant.

21. If it should be urged that the qualities
necessary to make a useful consul cannot
often be found in a good linguist, and that
the world is not entirely made up of Admirable
Crichtons, let us at least provide that
the consul's clerk shall be a linguist, and
specially informed on the nature of the work
required of him. It might perhaps also be
well to separate distinctly the career of
consul and clerk, as is done in other services,
to prevent rivalry.

22. A certain number of young men should
be educated, specially for the consular service,
as in France and Germany. After they have
passed fitting examinations and attained a
reasonable age, they should be eligible for
employment as acting consuls.

23. No person should ever be allowed to
officiate as acting consul (in the absence of
that functionary) unless he have previously
passed an examination, or served three years
in a consulate. The boys sometimes sent to
mind the great British consulates in the
Levant bring discredit and ridicule on the
service. It is at once wrong also and absurd
to place the serious interests of a whole
community under the protection of a lad of
nineteen, who can possibly have no one
quality for acquitting himself properly of so
grave a responsibility.

24. Such a regulation, also, would prevent
the crying abuse of those private arrangements
by which a consul may, and sometimes
does, recommend an unfit person to replace
him during his absence, upon an understanding
that he will refund all or part of the
allowance awarded by Government for such
service, and deducted from the consul's
salary. The French have a wholesome dread
of family embassies and consulates. They
have all sorts of regulations to prevent them,
as injurious to the public service. We seem
to take a different view of the case; for
look where we will, there is a family gathered
together where it ought not to be.

25. It is extremely necessary that consuls
should be instructed as to the importance
and propriety of having the consular office
at their residence. If this should be
inconvenient in large unhealthly seaports, at all
events, let there be an office at the consul's
house; as the want of it often occasions a
very inconvenient amount of running about
and loss of time to men of business and
invalids. Let it also be rendered culpable in
consuls to refuse to execute public business,
either personally or by deputy, at any hour
between daylight and dark. Some of these
gentlemen are only to be found ready to do
their duty for one or two hours of the day;
and an opinion (which cannot be too sternly
and frequently humbled and laughed to
scorn) prevails among them that
bumptiousness and discourtesy add to their
importance.

It is a notorious fact that passports, according
to the privileges of British subjects, are
much too lightly given to foreigners,
especially in the Levant. Let it, therefore, be
provided that no consul shall be competent
to grant passports, except on evidence
satisfactory to the local authorities; and that, in
the first instance such passports be countersigned
by the said local authorities. Thus a
large amount of evil will be prevented, for it
now happens that a great many dishonest
foreigners continue to escape the legal
burdens borne by the rest of their countrymen,
and that others have to pay their share.

26. Finally, I would suggest that there
should be no such thing as a political consul.
Let consuls be gentlemen, learned in the
law and in commercial affairs. Their duties,
properly understood, will then be sufficiently
onerous. Politicians should be persons of
general information and special studies
wholly apart from those required by consuls.
As affairs now stand, however, we have
consular diplomatists and diplomatic consuls,
neither of whom know their business. This,
however, comes of our astounding system of
patronage, which made Mr. Pitt say that, he
had never been able, save on one occasion in
his life, to appoint the right man to the right
place.

                    ILLUSION.

WHERE the golden corn is bending,
   And the singing reapers pass,
Where the chestnut woods are sending
   Leafy showers on the grass,

The blue river onward flowing
   Mingles with its noisy strife,
The murmur of the flowers growing,
   And the hum of insect life.

I from that rich plain was gazing
   Towards the snowy mountains high,
Who their gleaming peaks were raising
   Up against the purple sky.

And the glory of their shining,
   Bathed in clouds of rosy light,
Set my weary spirit pining
   For a home so pure and bright!

So I left the plain, and weary,
   Fainting, yet with hope sustained,
Toiled through pathways long and dreary,
   Till the mountain top was gained.

Lo! the height that I had taken,
   As so shining from below,
Was a desolate, forsaken
   Region of perpetual snow.

I am faint, my feet are bleeding,
   All my feeble strength is worn,
In the plain no soul is heeding,
   I am here alone, forlorn.

Lights are shining, bells are tolling,
   In the busy vale below;
Near me night's black clouds are rolling,
   Gathering o'er a waste of snow.