account-books, we learn much concerning the economic history of the
country, and the methods of the administration of local and parochial
government. As a rule persons interested in such matters have to
content themselves with the statements of the ecclesiastical law books
on the subject of the repair of churches, the law of church rates, the
duties of churchwardens, and the constitution and power of vestries.
And yet there has always existed a variety of customs and practices
which have stood for ages on their prescriptive usage with many
complications and minute differentiations. These old account-books and
minute-books of the churchwardens in town and country are a very large
but a very perishable and rapidly perishing treasury of information on
matters the very remembrance of which is passing away. Yet little care
is taken of these books. An old book is finished and filled up with
entries; a new book is begun. No one takes any care of the old book.
It is too bulky for the little iron register safe. A farmer takes
charge of it; his children tear out pages on which to make their
drawings; it is torn, mutilated, and forgotten, and the record
perishes. All honour to those who have transcribed these documents
with much labour and endless pains and printed them. They will have
gained no money for their toil. The public do not show their gratitude
to such laborious students by purchasing many copies, but the
transcribers know that they have fitted another stone in the Temple of
Knowledge, and enabled antiquaries, genealogists, economists, and
historical inquirers to find material for their pursuits.

The churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Thame, and some of the most
interesting in the kingdom, are being printed in the _Berks, Bucks,
and Oxon Archæological Journal_. The originals were nearly lost.
Somehow they came into the possession of the Buckinghamshire
Archæological Society. The volume was lent to the late Rev. F. Lee, in