I have spoken of the clerk of the Board as having expressed a favourable opinion of the economy I had effected on my first entrance on my duties. The clerk had occupied a similar position at St. Martin's prior to its amalgamation with the Strand Union. As I never went near the clerk of that Union after the discovery of his perfidy in making, in conjunction with Catch, a false charge against me, I was often at a loss to know to whom I could go when any difficulty cropped up. Having had an introduction to this clerk, I frequently called and consulted him; consequently I was not surprised when, through the loss of his office, as the result of St. Martin's being joined to the remaining parishes of the old Strand Union, he was without employment, that he should call on me and invoke my good offices in favour of his being appointed to a similar position in the Westminster Union--the gentleman who had filled the office and that of vestry clerk for St. James's having elected to continue in the latter office only, and not to combine therewith any appointment under the Poor Law. Having some influence in St. Anne's at that time, and being also known in St. James's, I gave him my support, with the result that he was elected clerk to the Board. He never exhibited gratitude for my doing this; indeed, on the contrary, he was distinctly hostile to me during the first few years after my appointment, more especially in all matters relating to lunatics, the truth being that he had a sympathy with all those who were alleged to be of unsound mind, arising, I consider, from the fact that he had a consciousness of not being quite right himself. During the two-and-twenty years I knew him I never saw him half-a-dozen times with a shirt on. I do not state that he never wore one, it was simply never visible; what did duty for it was a sheet of more or less crumpled whitey-brown paper. His clothes were as torn and ragged as those of the most poverty-stricken casual--his shoes down at heel, and the legs of his seedy-looking black trousers hanging in rags. He always complained of being so very poor through the strain put upon him in having to support some needy relatives. His condition and poverty-stricken appearance were often the subject of conversation and commiseration: "Poor fellow," it used to be said, "he has had a great deal of trouble, and is very poor." It was therefore a matter of great astonishment to find, after his death, which took place somewhat suddenly, that he was possessed of several thousand pounds. He died without making any will, and there was a legal struggle among distant relations as to who should secure his very considerable belongings. I have frequently noticed on the part of eccentric people this disbelief in and morbid sympathy with lunatics, and believe it to arise from a species of innate consciousness of mental deficiency, and a fear lest they also should be incarcerated.