There is one other position or grade in the Civil Service which we must not omit to describe. A seat in the Board of Revenue is the object of ambition set before commissioners and all executive officers as the reward of their persevering labours and acknowledged merit. Unfortunately it is a haven which few are destined to enter and to be at rest. In the good old days, forty years ago, there were two Boards, each Board consisting of three members. One Board was styled the Board of Land Revenue, the other was the Board of Customs, Salt, and Opium. Each Board had its own separate office and establishment, and its senior and junior civilian secretaries. In those good times there was a chance for many men of arriving at the dignity of a seat in one of the two Boards. But a wicked man was found, whose name must not be even mentioned, who proclaimed to the world that “Boards are screens,” and so the days of Boards were numbered, and the screen which for so many long years had served as a cover to the multitudinous sins of Government (yes, of Government, and not of the Board itself) was ruthlessly torn down. The Board consists now only of two members, who are expected to carry on the work for which six men were formerly needed, and their four secretaries have been reduced to two. Nor is this the only change. The Board is now a Board only in name. The two members take charge of separate departments, and each member carries on his work independently, and without consultation with his colleague, except in some few special matters which it is needless to enumerate. One member takes the Land Revenue Department, which provides him with plenty of employment. The other member takes what is absurdly called the Miscellaneous Land Revenue Department, which includes the Excise, Customs, Salt and Opium, Stamps and Stationery, and License-Tax Departments, with a few odds and ends from the Land Revenue (proper), such as the acquisition of land for public purposes, and the partition of landed estates. Occasionally the two members sit together to hear appeals, when there is a probability that the decision of a commissioner will be reversed, as the concurrence of both members is required to set aside the decision of such an experienced officer as a commissioner.