These records, I said, were indelible: but there was nothing to prevent a teacher from (so to speak) suiciding his parchment certificate and lamenting its loss for the rest of his life. If the parchment was lost, the Department declined to replace it, unless it had been lost by an inspector. Probably the inspectors lost more than the teachers destroyed, but it was rumoured that the latter method was not unknown. An alternative remedy was to erase undesirable words, and, if necessary, to introduce amendments. This certainly was done occasionally, for there were cases of detection, and that suggests the existence of undetected cases. A more remarkable course was to hire, or buy the parchment of a retired teacher, if possible a homonym, and to trade under that new name with such alterations as were necessary. A colleague told me of a case, which he declared was well known in the village in which the vendor lived. It was in Wales, and it was no one’s business to interfere. A touching story of a lost parchment is told by one inspector. These documents were not issued till after a period of probation, and if results during that period were not satisfactory, the term might be prolonged indefinitely. A London teacher, when her first chance came, was unsuccessful; and when the next chance came she was more than usually anxious. The inspection went smoothly: she began to hope: and day after day she sat like Mariana, lamenting the delay. Then came the joyful announcement that “the certificate of merit would shortly be issued,” and she became more clamorous. It happened one day, that illness kept her at home on the south side of the Thames, and she sent strictest orders that, if the big envelope with official heading arrived, it was to be locked up in the desk with special care. That very day it came, and the assistant mistress in her friendly zeal determined to disregard orders, and with her own hands to carry it to her care-worn chief. It would do her more good than medicine. She went by steamer up the Thames, Battersea way; and as it was a cold day, she put the precious burden on her lap, and buried her hands in her muff. There came a sudden gust, which lifted the big square envelope, whirled it round, and tossed it into the river. And she was left lamenting. First the news had to be broken to the bereaved one. Like Tennyson’s dame “(She) wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born.” She was frantic with grief, and her friends trembled for her intellect, such as it was. But the assistant was a girl of much resourcefulness. Her father was a prominent official in the body that looks after the Thames: she went to him, and told the piteous tale. My colleague--but he was an imaginative man--alleged that they dragged the river from Teddington Lock to the Nore, but caught nothing. Finally it was decided that a sea-gull had detected a meaty flavour beneath the paper cover and had carried it off.