he
masses. In these circumstances it is not surprising to read of things
existing within the last hundred years which to-day could have no place
in our national existence. Lord Cockburn, in the _Memorials of his
Time_, gives the following instance. "I knew a case, several years
after 1800," says he, "where the seat-holders of a town church applied
to Government, which was the patron, for the promotion of the second
clergyman, who had been giving great satisfaction for many years, and
now, on the death of the first minister, it was wished that he should
get the vacant place. The answer, written by a Member of the Cabinet,
was that the single fact of the people having interfered so far as to
express a wish was conclusive against what they desired; and another
appointment was instantly made." Going back a little more than a hundred
years, the following are specimens of the abuses then in full vigour.
They are referred to in Trevelyan's _Early History of Charles James
Fox_, the period in question being about 1750-60: "One nobleman had
eight thousand a year in sinecures, and the colonelcies of three
regiments. Another, an Auditor of the Exchequer, inside which he never
looked, had L8000 in years of peace, and L20,000 in years of war. A
third, with nothing to recommend him except his outward graces, bowed
and whispered himself into four great employments, from which thirteen
to fourteen hundred British guineas flowed month by month into the lap
of his Parisian mistress."... "George Selwyn, who returned two members,
and had something to say in the election of a third, was at one and the
same time Surveyor-General of Crown Lands, which he never surveyed,
Registrar in Chancery at Barbadoes, which he never visited, and Surveyor
of the Meltings and Clerk of the Irons in the Mint, where he showed
himself once a week in order to eat a dinner which he ordered, but for
which the nation paid."

The shameful waste of the public money in the shape of hereditary
pensions was still in vigour within the period we are dealing with; one
small party in the State "calling the tune," and the great mass of the
people, practically unrepresented, being left "to pay the piper." During
the reign of George III., who occupied the throne from 1760 to 1820, the
following hereditary pensions were granted:--To Trustees for the use of
William Penn, and his heirs and descendants for ever, in consideration
of his meritorious services and family losses from th