‘The gentleman who conducted us’ observes MORITZ, ‘took little pains to conceal the contempt which he felt for my communications when he found it was only a German description of the British Museum which I had.’ ‘So rapid a passage,’ he continues, ‘through a vast suite of rooms, in little more than one hour of time, with opportunity to cast but one poor longing look of astonishment on all the vast treasures of nature, antiquity, and literature, in the examination of which one might profitably spend years, confuses, stuns, and overpowers the visitor.’ Two years later, we have a similar account of the experiences of an inquisitive Englishman, and of one who is much more outspoken in his complaint. [Sidenote: WILLIAM HUTTON’S VISIT IN 1784.] William HUTTON, the historian of Birmingham, came to London in December, 1784. ‘I was unwilling to quit it,’ he writes, ‘without seeing what I had, many years, wished to see. But how to accomplish it was the question. I had not one relative in that vast metropolis to direct me.... By good fortune, I stumbled upon a person possessing a ticket for the next day, which he valued less than two shillings. We struck a bargain in a moment and were both pleased.... I was not likely to forget Tuesday, December 7th, at eleven.’ HUTTON, shrewd as he was, did not suspect the real nature of his ‘bargain.’ He had met with a professional dealer in Museum tickets; one of several who, on a humbler scale, followed in the steps of Peter LEHEUP, but were lucky enough not to excite the anger of the House of Commons. He was taken through the rooms in company with about ten other persons, at a very rapid rate. He asked their conductor for some information about the curiosities. The reply, he says, so humbled him that he could not utter another word. ‘The company seemed influenced. They made haste and were silent. No voice was heard but in whispers. If a man spends two minutes in a room, in which a thousand things demand his attention, he cannot bestow on them a glance apiece.... It grieved me to think how much I lost for want of a little information. In about thirty minutes we finished our silent journey through the princely mansion, which would well have taken thirty days.... I had laid more stress on the British Museum, than on anything else which I should see in London. It was the only sight which disgusted me.... [Sidenote: Hutton, _A Journey to London_, pp. 187–196.] Government purchased this rare collection at a vast expense, and exhibits it as a national honour.... How far it answers the end proposed this account will testify.’ Better days were at hand. But it was not until 1805 that the rules of admission were even so far effectively revised as to abolish the traffic in tickets. Nor was any ‘Synopsis’ of the contents of the Museum provided until 1808. In that year admission tickets were abolished wholly.