2. Naval and military accounts.

3. Revenue accounts branch; for auditing
the customs, post-office, inland revenue, and
sheriffs' accounts.

4. The public debt and pay-office accounts
branch. This takes cognisance of the accounts
of the Bank of England, of the national
debt, of the paymaster-general, the pay-master
of the civil service in Ireland, and the queen
and lord treasurer's remembrancer in
Scotland.

5. The woods and works account branch.

6. The first section of the commissariat
branch. This attends to commercial affairs
at and beyond the Cape of Good Hope,
namely, at the Cape and at Ceylon, Hong
Kong, the Mauritius, New South Wales,
New Zealand, South Australia, Western
Australia, and Van Diemen's Land.

7. The second section of the commissariat
branch. This deals with the business of the
commissariat on this side of the Cape.

8 and 9. Are formed by a like division into
two sections of the colonial account branch.

10. The police and prisons branch. Attends
to the accounts of the London and Dublin
police, the Irish constabulary, county-courts,
the convict service, and all prisons.

11 and 12. Are the first and second section.
of the miscellaneous account branch. The
business of the first includes the accounts of
all poor-law commissions, of Irish lunatic
asylums, hospitals and infirmaries, of the
board of trade, the diplomatic and the secret
service. The other section of this branch
takes cognisance of all other small accounts
of the public service, some thirty or forty in
number, and is manned with one inspector,
one senior first-class, two senior second-class,
three junior and two assistant examiners, and
one temporary clerk.

The number of persons in the establish-
ment averages one hundred and fifty persons.
The temporary clerks receive according to
their standing, from five to eleven shillings
a-day, The retiring allowances are the same
as in other departments of the civil service.

A gainst every one who receives public money
a charge of the amount imprested to him is
entered on the books of the audit board, and the
board then calls on the receiver to discharge
himself of the sum—first, by showing proper
vouchers for the money he has spent, and
then by proof that he was duly authorised to
spend it.

When the examination of an account is
completed at the audit office, the commissioners
make what is called a "state of the account,"
which briefly includes the charge and discharge.
This they transmit to the treasury,
which, if satisfied therewith, grants a warrant
to prepare it for declaration. The state of
the account so warranted is then made into a
declared account, declared by the commissioners
of audit, and signed by the chancellor
of the exchequer. A record of it is entered
at the treasury; but it is in the audit office
that the document is finally deposited. The
fact is then notified to the accountant. If
there is no balance in his hands, the account
is pronounced even and quit. If there be a
balance, it is notified that the charge against
the accountant is so much and the discharge
so much, and the accountant is declared to be
indebted to the amount of whatever the
balance may be. This is the accountant's
formal acquittance to the extent stated. On,
the other side, for balances improperly detained
in the accountant's hands the board of
audit has power to charge him interest; and
both it and the treasury have large and
prompt remedies at law against all debtors to
the crown.

The duties and powers of the audit office
are partially enacted by various statutes, and
partly the result of treasury orders. In those
of its duties for which authority is derived by
statute the audit board acts independently of
the treasury, and will not admit of its interference;
but in all other respects the audit
board is subject to the treasury as its superior
power. At present, the laws under which,
the board acts are confused and dispersed;
but it is intended shortly to consolidate and
bring them all into one general statute. It is
probable that these changes will tend to
render the audit board more independent of
the treasury than it now is.

THE OLD BOAR'S HEAD.

IN no history of London that has ever
been written, from the remote time of the of the old
author, Fitz-Stephen, up to that of our present
Peter Cunningham, has the gradual downfall
of any ancient house been so minutely described
as that of the Old Boar's Head Tavern,
Eastcheap, by Shakspeare. GOLDSMITH
and WASHINGTON IRVING have, each in his
own delightful way, treated of the Old Boar's
Head. Let me follow its decline and fall,
through Shakspeare.

It was, and for years had been, a respectable
and well-to-do house at the time Prince Hal
and his boon companions frequented it; for the
host, Quickly, was a thorough man of business,
and had everybody's good word, even that of
his wife; but after his death there was a great
change for the worse, and, in the end, utter
ruin. Falstaff and his followers got into the
widow's debt. He borrowed money of her,
and even got her to sell her goods and chattels;
introduced such characters as Doll Tearsheet
into the house, promised to marry her,
then went off into the country to beat about
for recruits, aud when he returned found her
in prison. The character of the old tavern
sank lower and lower; a man was killed
during a brawl in the house; Widow Quickly
took in common lodgers; married that bouncing,
cowardly, " swaggering rascal," Pistol.
Then Falstaff died in it. Her new husband
left her and went to the wars; and finally
she died in the hospital.