remainder of mankind's requirements besides food and drink, clothing and shelter, to which the modern additions of transport and physical or intellectual distraction were already in prospect. The documents derived from this potential source, the journal, ledger, and other records of the counting-house, would include, besides a statement of receipts of various kinds, a further statement of expenses, including the wages of servants and labourers and the fees or salaries of officers. Among the permanent charges on real and personal estate many would be unfamiliar to us now, and for this reason alone the preservation of a unique assemblage of detailed and statistical information for many different aspects of Economic and Social history is much to be desired, assuming that it has now received the necessary arrangement provided for as long ago as 1911.

In attempting any estimate of the probable historical value of what purports to be a new and important source of historical information it is desirable, in the first place, to establish, as far as possible, the provenance of the documents. A brief account of their earlier custody and devolution has been given above, and further particulars will be found in numerous works, of which a few titles are prefixed to this article. It might be useful to add, in respect of the relationship of these documents with other sources, that accumulations of exhibits and such-like forinsec records existed in other departments of the Court of Chancery as well as in Courts of Common Law, where a great number of boxes filled with exhibits and other documents was found by the Royal Commission in 1912. The documents which accumulated since the abolition of the Master's office included a large series of Account Books reaching back to the Restoration. Earlier still, related records existed in the Report Office of the Registrars of the Court of Chancery and selections from causes heard since 1545 and recorded in the books which had 'lain probably untouched for considerably more than two centuries' were printed in 1847.

Reference had been previously made to other collections of documents which would seem to have been deposited as Chancery exhibits including some which are now classified as 'Ancient Correspondence' or 'State

Papers.' That the Cely, Stonor, Johnson, and Darrell Papers with others were originally Chancery Exhibits seems very probable; but the administrative department of the Chancery and Exchequer had their 'exhibits' also in the shape of family papers deposited or forfeited by the owners or by their descendants, just as the offices of the Secretaries of State were stacked with bulky inclosures or pièces justificatives down to our own times. In any case, the question of provenance is chiefly important here for the purpose of indicating a new source of information, and the only matter for surprise is the failure to follow up clues supplied by both early and recent publications of Chancery Proceedings.

The value of the Chancery Masters' Documents as a source of historical information may depend in some degree upon their bulk, a cryptic statement which will be presently explained. In respect of their actual contents, however, it should be noticed that (as in so many other cases) these may be serviceable for completing or supplementing researches in other quarters, just as antiquaries are accustomed to supply from public records the gaps in local archives caused by ecclesiastical voidances or by feudal escheats and forfeitures. In this connexion they might usefully supplement the often tantalising allusions found in the proceedings taken before the Chancellor himself. Again, it will be evident that these documents may possess a peculiar interest or value by reason of their very various nature and from the intimate view that they enable us to take of the economic and social environment of individuals representing different classes of the community.

In another aspect of their custody the archivist has been faced with a problem on the solution of which much of the value of the documents depends. It may be surmised that such documents would be especially valuable for statistical purposes, that is to say, for supplying continuous prices of commodities, materials, and labour, with details of the agrarian and industrial economy and commercial enterprise of this country in the 17th and 18th centuries. That is a period for which such information is already scanty owing to the erroneous assumption that adequate statistics have been published, and the consequent destruction of many

original sources which did not appear valuable for the genealogical, literary, and archæological researches with which the State archivists of other days were most familiar. Unfortunately, too, these archivists were practically compelled, owing to the inadequate provision made by the Government for their accommodation, to find room for documents that they desired to preserve by destroying others in which they were not particularly interested. In the present day superfluous records are destroyed only after a careful scrutiny by competent and experienced archivists who receive their instructions from the Judicature and submit the results of their operations for approval by Parliament. Between 1868 and 1876, however, the Chancery Masters' Documents were dealt with by much cruder methods, and, worse still, the destroyer was their inexpert custodian whose salary was paid out of the Suitor's Fund, which received instead the proceeds of sales of waste paper and parchment. Probably the exhibits, as they existed at the date of the pending abolition of the Master's office in 1852, included a very large bulk of documents which was destroyed or otherwise disposed of before 1877, and even since that date, with the well-meant but not always careful precautions of the later Victorian regime. In this way we gather from the printed reports that more than half the collection has been weeded out, with a necessary preference given to legal title deeds over documents of such doubtful historical value as economic and social statistics.

As to their original and remaining bulk, respectively, we learn that the Documents removed from the Chancery Masters' Offices in 1852 were contained in 927 boxes and 6063 bundles or files, besides maps and plans with 7018 large Account Books. Some (ten) years later these records were deposited in the basement of the Patent Office in twelve vaults, besides books in two presses. Finally, when preparations were made for their removal to the Record Office between 1863 and 1868, an official estimate of the space required for their accommodation specifies 50,000 cubic feet. The importance of these rough estimates of the full extent of the original collection of Chancery Masters' Documents seems to consist in the light that they throw on the disposal of the collections

of stray records which came to hand during the second half of the 19th century. As to this, it is instructive to remember that the Deputy Keeper not only protested at the time, but took action that resulted in the Act of Parliament of 1877, which, since 1882, has stopped the destruction of public records otherwise than by the advice and under the immediate supervision of the Record Office. It will be observed, however, that in all the official reports and correspondence, by which the fate of the Chancery Masters' Documents was determined, there is no mention of the exhibits that must have been deposited in causes heard before the 17th century. Since the contemporary pleadings, orders, decrees, and even more subsidiary records have been preserved, it may be inferred that earlier exhibits have perished unless specimens have been preserved in private hands, or among the main collections of judicial records in official custody.

Enough has now been said in description of these obscure waifs and strays of the old Court of Chancery to suggest that they seem to possess a distinctive value as historical sources. It is true that precisely similar series of documents may be found in many well-known collections of family papers, as well as those in the custody of learned institutions and State archives. The distinction lies in the conversion of a private and local into a public and central archive, and it is one that in some cases may make the difference between an accessible and an inaccessible source. Naturally such speculations suggest the question whether further collections are likely to be discovered as the result of official or academic enterprise. The answer to this question may be that much depends on the progress of co-operation between central and local authorities for the better custody of neglected archives. The exhibits of the Courts of Common Law and Equity perhaps stand alone, but within living memory the papers captured from enemy prizes of many nationalities filled eight hundred sacks in the capacious but insecure repository at the Tower of London. These were the 'flotsam and jetsam' of the Prize Courts of the High Court of Admiralty, with perhaps an equally large collection of exhibits in civil causes which have been heard since men first went down to the sea in ships.

The procedure for the 'reconstruction' of offences against the State in Courts Martial or State Trials was responsible for the preservation of exhibits more suitable for preservation in museums than in archives; but here again the modern habit of destruction has solved the problem of accommodation. More legitimate interest, however, may be taken in the vast but scattered and ill-kept collections of local documents, pertaining to the jurisdictions of ecclesiastical officers or to manorial and municipal franchises, the callous neglect of which is scarcely consistent with an intelligent interest in the national history, or even in the progress of culture or art. Many years ago great expectations were aroused in connexion with the salvage of another neglected class of judicial records, the Exchequer and Audit Office vouchers dumped in the cellars of Somerset House and disposed of, as an official economy, through sales to local fishmongers, by whom they were retailed to enterprising booksellers for the benefit of the dilettante of the Strand and Borough.

Apart from exhibits and other deposits among the miscellaneous classes of judicial records, the most notable trouvaille in State archives that has been recorded in our own time emanated from the administrative departments of the Royal Household and Duchies, and in greater bulk from the Government offices in Whitehall and their branch establishments. Among some valuable sources of the national history that have been made more accessible at the suggestion of the Royal Commission of 1910-19, the returns of cargo shipped from London and the outports known as the 'Port Books' have already adorned many a tale in the History seminars of American Universities. These remarkable and long-neglected records were statutory compilations begun in the medieval Custom Houses and eventually preserved among the Exchequer records. Their destruction was long ago begun by order of Parliament, but was fortunately not carried out.

Halfway between the old establishments of the Civil List and the later Commissions which are now established beside them reference may be made to the estate or household records of bishoprics and chapters which have fallen into the indifferent hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, including a most valuable, though neg