"He may submit till he is tired," interrupted the Minister. "Make a memorandum to answer the petition to the effect that her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department does not see any ground for interfering in the matter."
"Very good, my lord. This letter it from a pauper in the—— Union, stating that he has been cruelly assaulted, beaten, and ill-used by the master; that he has applied in vain to the Poor Law Commissioners for redress; and that he now ventures to submit his case to your lordship."
"Make a note to answer that the fullest inquiries shall be immediately instituted," said the Minister.
"Shall I give the necessary instructions for the inquiry, my lord?" asked the Secretary.
"Inquiry!" repeated the Minister: "are you mad? Do you really imagine that I shall be foolish enough to permit any inquiry at all? Such a step would be almost certain to end in substantiating the pauper's charge against the master; and then there would be a clamour from one end of the country to the other against the New Poor Laws. We must smother all such affairs whenever we can; but by writing to say that the fullest inquiries shall be instituted, I shall be armed with a reply to any member who might happen to bring the case before Parliament. My answer to the charge would then be that her Majesty's Government had instituted a full inquiry into the matter, and had ascertained that the pauper was a quarrelsome, obstreperous, and disorderly person, who was not to be believed upon his oath."
"True, my lord," said the Secretary, evidently struck by this display of ministerial wisdom. "The next letter, my lord, is from a clerk in the Tax Office, Somerset House. He complains that his income is too small, and that the Commissioners of Taxes refuse to augment it. He states in pretty plain terms, that unless he receives an augmentation, he shall not hesitate to publish the fact, that the Dividend Books of the Bank of England are removed to the Tax-Office every six months, in order that an account of every fundholder's stock in the government securities may be taken for the information of the Treasury and the Tax Commissioners: he adds that such an announcement would convulse the whole nation with alarm at the awful state of espionnage under which the people exist; and he states these grounds as a reason for purchasing his silence by means of an increase of salary."
"This is serious—very serious," said the Minister: "but the letter should have been addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You must enclose it to my colleague."
"Yes, my lord," replied the Secretary.
At this moment a gentle knock was heard at the door of the apartment.
The Secretary hastened to respond to the summons, and admitted two persons dressed in plain but decent attire. One was a short, stout, red-faced, consequential-looking man: the other was a tall, raw-boned, ungainly person, and seemed quite confounded at the presence in which he found himself.