This naturally encouraged others. In 1782 the Provveditor Michiel informed the Senate that the Podestà of the city of Usmago had calmly pocketed the price of an oak forest, which he had asked leave to cut down on pretence of using the funds for repairing his official residence. Finally, a number of posts, especially in the ducal household, were openly sold; in the last years of the Republic even the office of a procurator of Saint Mark could be bought. In close connection with the magistracies and the legal profession generally, I give the following amusing extract from Goldoni’s memoirs. He begins by telling us that although he had been entered at a lawyer’s office for two years, he left it fitted for the profession in eight months, [Sidenote: _Goldoni, i. 23._] because the administration interpreted the two years to mean the dates of two consecutive years, without any regard to the months. Young Goldoni then took a lodging in the lawyers’ quarter near San Paterniano, and his mother and aunt lived with him. I put on the toga belonging to my new station (he continues), and it is the same as that of the Patricians; I smothered my head in an enormous wig and impatiently awaited the day of my presentation in the Palace. The novice must have two assistants who are called in Venice Compari di Palazzo [‘Palace godfathers’]. The young man chooses them amongst those of the old lawyers who are most friendly to him.... So I went between my two sponsors to the foot of the grand staircase in the great courtyard of the Palace, and for an hour and a half I made so many bows and contortions that my back was broken and my wig was like a lion’s mane. Every one who passed before me gave his opinion of me; some said, Here is a youth of good character; others said, Here is another Palace sweeper; some embraced me, some laughed in my face. To be short, I went up the stairs and sent the servant to find a gondola, so as not to show myself in the street in such a dishevelled state, naming as a place of meeting the Hall of the Great Council, where I sat down on a bench whence I could see every one pass without being seen by any one. During this time, I reflected on the career I was about to embrace. In Venice there are generally two hundred and forty lawyers entered on the register; there are ten or twelve of the first rank, about twenty who occupy the second; all the others are hunting for clients; and the poorer Procurators gladly act as their dogs on condition of sharing the prey....