PERSPICUITY OF RED TAPE.
In reply to a request for information where to get the Blue Books which are granted to Mechanics' Institutions, "A Provincial Secretary," writing to the Times, says that he received the following official directions; that is to say, he was told
"To make application at the proper season to the clerk of the committee, to be appointed pursuant to the report of the House of Commons on Parliamentary papers, ordered to be printed on the 7th of July last."
This the "Provincial Secretary" wants translated for the benefit of himself and other country gentlemen. The passage may be construed thus:—
At certain times of the year, and between certain hours, which will be appointed hereafter but are not fixed yet, apply to somebody who will perhaps be the clerk of a committee which does not at present exist but will, one of these days, in conformity with a report of the House of Commons on Parliamentary Papers, which was ordered to be printed on the 7th of July last, be constituted, if that report shall ever be acted on.
The translation is rather longer than the original; but if brevity is required to be the soul of official advice, the answer might simply have been "Arrangements have not been made," to which, if any further explanation were necessary, might have been added, "And when they will be, Heaven only knows."