 (but with more deference, I am afraid,
to his being Dora's father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the
Registry of that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving
effects within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries,
should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased by the
registrars for their own private emolument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be
fire-proof, choked with the important documents it held, and positively, from
the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the registrars, who took
great fees from the public, and crammed the public's wills away anyhow and
anywhere, having no other object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps,
it was a little unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits
amounting to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits
of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to spend a
little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the important
documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand over to them,
whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little unjust, that all the
great offices in this great office, should be magnificent sinecures, while the
unfortunate working-clerks in the cold dark room up-stairs were the worst
rewarded, and the least considered men, doing important services, in London.
That perhaps it was a little indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose
duty it was to find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful
accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post (and
might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a stall in a
cathedral, and what not), while the public was put to the inconvenience of which
we had a specimen every afternoon when the office was busy, and which we knew to
be quite monstrous. That perhaps, in short, this Prerogative Office of the
diocese of Canterbury was altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious
absurdity, that but for its being squeezed away in a corner of Saint Paul's
Churchyard, which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside
out, and upside down, long ago.
    Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then argued
this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what was it after
all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt that
