Chambers. It must be owned that we have but a slip-slop way of
christening our public buildings. When a man tells us that he
called on a friend at the Horse Guards, or looked in at the Navy
Pay, or dropped a ticket at the Woods and Forests, we put up with
the accustomed sounds, though they are in themselves, perhaps,
indefensible. The 'Board of Commissioners for Regulating Weights
and Measures', and the 'Office of the Board of Commissioners for
Regulating Weights and Measures', are very long phrases; and as,
in the course of this tale, frequent mention will be made of the
public establishment in question, the reader's comfort will be
best consulted by maintaining its popular though improper
denomination.

It is generally admitted that the Weights and Measures is a well-
conducted public office; indeed, to such a degree of efficiency
has it been brought by its present very excellent secretary, the
two very worthy assistant-secretaries, and especially by its late
most respectable chief clerk, that it may be said to stand quite
alone as a high model for all other public offices whatever. It
is exactly antipodistic of the Circumlocution Office, and as such
is always referred to in the House of Commons by the gentleman
representing the Government when any attack on the Civil Service,
generally, is being made.

And when it is remembered how great are the interests entrusted
to the care of this board, and of these secretaries and of that
chief clerk, it must be admitted that nothing short of superlative
excellence ought to suffice the nation. All material intercourse
between man and man must be regulated, either justly or
unjustly, by weights and measures; and as we of all people