In 1882 two parishes in Carnarvonshire, Criccieth, and Llanllyfni, levied rates of 39·4 and 44 pence respectively. (See Blue Book, 1883.) [3] But I cannot find the phrase in the _Annals_ xiv. 29; or in the _Agricola_. CHAPTER III VAGRANT “Sports like these In sweet succession taught e’en toil to please.” Goldsmith. So we fought a hard fight for two months or more, and began to see our way more clearly. It was then that I learned a lesson, which lasted me through my official life and did me much good service: the advisability of taking the public into one’s confidence. People like to know what is going on; and, if there is to be disagreement, it is better to have it early, when explanation will generally put matters right or effect a compromise. At that time this was a hateful doctrine in the eyes of Whitehall officials: they said it “led to correspondence.” My experience is in the opposite direction: why should men write letters if they know the facts? If official inference from the facts is wrong, they ought to write. I lived to see the “free and open” policy generally adopted, and commended by My Lords. For this reason in our enquiry we[4] took the local magnates into counsel. Choosing some place central for two or more parishes, we invited the incumbent and the overseers to meet us. The incumbent brought the landowners, and the overseers brought the chapel dignitaries. From this collected wisdom we got all the information we wanted, and sometimes good advice. Above all, we got confidence; for those present saw and heard all the information that was given us: they learned the requirements of the Act, and were told exactly how far their district went towards satisfying the law. Confidence is a plant that for special reasons grows slowly in that land; and occasionally there were outbursts of fury; but, as we shall see later, the result was that our recommendations were received with hardly a single murmur. Through these meetings sometimes one made friendships which lasted for years: less often one met men, whom, it was a consolation to think, one would never meet again in this world, or (with good fortune) in any other world. Sometimes in out of the way corners of the earth there were odd incidents which abide in the memory and after all the long interval blossom into mirth. A dull June day, with cold rain hanging about: a mediæval gig, and an indigenous driver, lineally descended from Caliban, and all but monoglott. We meet an aged clergyman, and Caliban touches his hat. “Who is that?” I ask, to make conversation. “Well, they call him Menander.” “Menander? What does that mean?” “’Deed, I don’t know,” was the natural and national answer.