Such were the gloomy prepossessions of Mr. William Wallace, as he approached the archway which held the testamentary treasures of Diocese Number Four. He sought the searching office in vain, and at length was fain to address himself to the first passenger—a burly blacksmith—who, at once, in answer to his inquiry, pointed to a handsome new stone building, that stood within the Abbey Square.
Mr. William Wallace ascended the steps doubtingly; and when he found himself in the wide passage of an evidently well-planned public office—so contrary was the whole aspect of the place to his preconceptions of it, and to his previous experience of other ecclesiastical Registries—that he would have retired, had not the words, “Searching Office,” as plain as paint and capitals could make them, stared him full in the face from a door on his right. This he boldly opened, and beheld a handsome apartment, so mounted with desks, counters, and every appurtenance for public convenience, as to put him in mind of the interior of a flourishing assurance office. “The room,” says Mr. William Wallace, in his report to us, “is furnished with a counter of ample size, extending round it, on which you examine the indexes. On calling for one or two modern wills, the clerks brought me a substantial, well-bound book, in which he informed me all modern wills have been, since the appointment of the present Registrar, enrolled at length, in a round text, so distinct and plain, that illiterate persons might read them; and not engrossed, so as to become a source of revenue, as at Doctor’s Commons, where the unlearned, in what is called ‘court-hand,’ are obliged to call in the aid of a clerk, and disburse a fee for the wills to be read to them. I was informed that I could see the originals on giving a satisfactory reason to the Registrar, or, in his absence, to a principal clerk. So promptly is business done here, that I found the wills which had been received from Manchester and other places that day, had been already indexed—very different to York, where wills are sometimes not indexed for six or eight months, and, consequently, often not at all. I next inquired for some earlier wills, and stated that I might probably want to have two or three days’ research, for a literary purpose. On hearing this, the clerk informed me that the Registrar made no charge under such circumstances, except for the clerks’ time. I then called for about six early wills, and only one of the six could not be found. Afterwards I asked for the returns of several Parish Registers; each set of which are well and substantially bound in a separate volume; for this a fee of three shillings and eight-pence is demanded; at York, for the production of a similar quantity of records, fifteen pounds is the price, without clerks’ fees; and at Lincoln it would be impossible to collect them at all, many having been used to bind up modern wills, and for other such purposes.”
Mr. William Wallace, pleasingly surprised at the contrast this Registry number four presented to others he had visited, and where he had been so egregiously snubbed, determined to learn and see as much respecting it as possible. With this view, he applied, without any other introduction than his card, to the Registrar; whose excellent custom it was, he understood, to be in attendance daily for several hours. At that time he was examining witnesses in a case for the Ecclesiastical Court, and handed the card to the bishop’s secretary, who was also in official attendance. “That gentleman,” says Mr. Wallace, “immediately came down, and informed me that the Bishop had written to me, in answer to my application, two days before, giving me permission to search, at reasonable hours, and that the Registrar, as was his usual custom, had not the slightest objection. I then asked to be shown the various parts of the building, the modes of preserving the records, which request was granted without the smallest hesitation.”
Our informant then goes on to say that he found the building—which was raised solely at the expense of the present Registrar, since his appointment in 1837—conveniently divided into different departments like the best of the Government offices,—each department legibly indicated for the benefit of the inquirer, on the different doors.
The manner in which the records are preserved at this Cathedral number four, is spoken of by our friend with satisfaction. His report to us is silent on rats, wet, mildew, smoke, broken windows, torn testaments, and illegible calendars. “Modern wills,” he repeats, “are copied at length into volumes, by the present Registrar, a practice which I regret is not adopted at York, Lincoln, Lichfield, Winchester, and other places I have visited. If wills of an earlier date than that of the enrolment books are required to be taken out of the office for production in any Court of Law, &c., an examined copy made for the purpose, is deposited in its place during its temporary removal from the Registry. The principal portion of the wills are deposited in a dry, but not a fire-proof building, in good repair, called the Abbey Gateway; where, during the office hours, two clerks are constantly kept at work in copying wills that come in. These are kept in boxes, arranged upon shelves with just sufficient space to admit them, like drawers; and upon the top of the wills is a sheet of pasteboard fitting the box, as a further protection from dust. The wills are alphabetically arranged in the boxes, which are of uniform size, and contain more or less letters; the first box for 1835, for instance, contains the wills of testators whose names commence with A. or B. The wills of each letter are placed separately, and are divided into packets of one month each, so that the exact date of Probate being known, the will is found immediately.”
Before the period of its renovation, the Registry of Chester was as inefficient and exacting as the other three we have described. To whom the merit of the change and the contrast is really due, is not easily to be ascertained, although the present incumbent of the office must necessarily have the largest share of credit for it. We suspect, however, that the proximate impetus of the reform can be traced to the geographical position of the see. It includes the busiest of the manufacturing towns, and the most business-like, practical, and hard-handed examples of the English character. The thorough-going Manchester or Liverpool legatee would not endure, beyond a certain point and a certain time, the impositions, delays, destructions, and muddling confusion of the will offices in the more easy-going districts. Time with him is cash. What he wants he must have at once, especially if he pays for it. He may be put off once or twice with a rotten, illegible index, or a “Come again to-morrow;” but when he once sees that these may be obviated, he takes care to let there be no delay on his part, and agitates immediately. To engage a Free Trade Hall, and get up a public meeting, is with him a matter of no more consideration than scolding his clerk, or bringing a creditor to book. He has discredited the maxim that “talking is not doing;” and a constant iteration of pertinent speeches, ending with stinging “resolutions,” has been found to do greater feats, to perform much greater wonders than setting ecclesiastical registries in order. It is possible, therefore, that the lay authorities of the Chester Registry, having the dread of an uncompromising community before their eyes, saw their safety in renovation; and, like sensible men, made it, without that whining sophistication, that grim tenacity, with which abuses are excused and clung to, in exact proportion to their absurdity, profitableness, and injustice.
Part XX.
DISAPPEARANCES.
NOW, my dear cousin, Mr. B., charming as he is in many points, has the little peculiarity of liking to change his lodgings once every three months on an average, which occasions some bewilderment to his country friends, who have no sooner learnt the 19 Belle Vue Road, Hampstead, than they have to take pains to forget that address, and to remember the 27½, Upper Brown Street, Camberwell; and so on, till I would rather learn a page of “Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary,” than try to remember the variety of directions which I have had to put on my letters to Mr. B. during the last three years. Last summer it pleased him to remove to a beautiful village not ten miles out of London, where there is a railway station. Thither his friend sought him. (I do not now speak of the following scent there had been through three or four different lodgings, where Mr. B. had been residing, before his country friend ascertained that he was now lodging at R——.) He spent the morning in making inquiries as to Mr. B.’s whereabouts in the village; but many gentlemen were lodging there for the summer, and neither butcher nor baker could inform him where Mr. B. was staying; his letters were unknown at the post-office, which was accounted for by the circumstance of their always being directed to his office in town. At last the country friend sauntered back to the railway office, and while he waited for the train he made inquiry, as a last resource, of the book-keeper at the station. “No, sir, I cannot tell you where Mr. B. lodges—so many gentlemen go by the trains; but I have no doubt but that the person standing by that pillar can inform you.” The individual to whom he directed the inquirer’s attention had the appearance of a tradesman—respectable enough, yet with no pretensions to “gentility,” and had, apparently, no more urgent employment than lazily watching the passengers who came dropping in to the station. However, when he was spoken to, he answered civilly and promptly. “Mr. B.? tall gentleman, with light hair? Yes, sir, I know Mr. B. He lodges at No. 8 Morton Villas—has done these three weeks or more; but you’ll not find him there, sir, now. He went to town by the eleven o’clock train, and does not usually return until the half-past four train.”
The country friend had no time to lose in returning to the village, to ascertain the truth of this statement. He thanked his informant, and said he would call on Mr. B. at his office in town; but before he left R—— station, he asked the book-keeper who the person was to whom he had referred him for information as to his friend’s place of residence. “One of the detective police, sir,” was the answer. I need hardly say, that Mr. B., not without a little surprise, confirmed the accuracy of the policeman’s report in every particular.
When I heard this anecdote of my cousin and his friend, I thought that there could be no more romances written on the same kind of plot as Caleb Williams; the principal interest of which, to the superficial reader, consists in the alternation of hope and fear, that the hero may, or may not, escape his pursuer. It is long since I have read the story, and I forget the name of the offended and injured gentleman, whose privacy Caleb has invaded; but I know that his pursuit of Caleb—his detection of the various hiding-places of the latter—his following up of slight clews—all, in fact, depended upon his own energy, sagacity, and perseverance. The interest was caused by the struggle of man against man; and the uncertainty as to which would ultimately be successful in his object; the unrelenting pursuer, or the ingenious Caleb, who seeks by every device to conceal himself. Now, in 1851, the offended master would set the detective police to work; there would be no doubt as to their success; the only question would be as to the time that would elapse before the hiding-place could be detected, and that could not be a question long. It is no longer a struggle between man and man, but between a vast organised machinery, and a weak, solitary individual; we have no hopes, no fears—only certainty. But if the materials of pursuit and evasion, as long as the chase is confined to England, are taken away from the storehouse of the romancer, at any rate we can no more be haunted by the idea of the possibility of mysterious disappearances; and any one who has associated much with those who were alive at the end of the last century, can testify that there was some reason for such fears.