Near the end of that century the same idea was expressed with singular frankness in a manual on "The Office of the Clerk of the Peace," published in 1682. In an address "to the reader," which precedes the second part of the volume, the author explains the object of the book. After saying of the justices of the peace that their birth is a glory to their seats, he continues:-- "But divers of these Gentlemen having not been conversant in the Practice of the Ordinary Courts of Justice, often in the absence of those worthy Persons, who be associated with them for their Learning in the Law, meet with many difficulties and discouragements." Coming down to the eighteenth century there is the case of Squire Western and his clerk in "Tom Jones"; and later in the same novel the scene in the inn at Upton, where the strange justice is unwilling to act because he has not with him his book or his clerk. The reader will probably remember Justice Foxley and his clerk in "Redgauntlet"; and also Dickens's burlesque of the relation in the scene at Ipswich, where after much whispering between the justice (Mr. Nupkins) and his clerk (Mr. Jinks) the magistrate says to Mr. Pickwick:-- "An information has been sworn before me that it is apprehended you are going to fight a duel, and that the other man, Tupman, is your aider and abettor in it. Therefore--eh, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, Sir." "Therefore, I call upon you both to--I think that's the course, Mr. Jinks?" "Certainly, Sir." "To--to--what, Mr. Jinks?" said the magistrate pettishly. "To find bail, Sir." "Yes. Therefore, I call upon you both--as I was about to say, when I was interrupted by my clerk--to find bail." The satire here is particularly keen, because before the public the magistrate always takes the whole credit to himself, and is very sensitive about having the world believe that he is under the control of his clerk. [Sidenote: Lay Chief with Expert Subordinate an English Usage.] Leslie Stephen, I think, remarks somewhere that the characteristic feature of the English system of government is a justice of the peace who is a gentleman, with a clerk who knows the law; and certainly the relationship between the titular holder of a public post, enjoying the honours, and assuming the responsibility, of office, and a subordinate, who, without attracting attention, supplies the technical knowledge and largely directs the conduct of his chief, extends throughout the English government from the Treasury Bench to the borough council. Perhaps, indeed, it is not altogether fanciful to attribute the ease with which the principle has become established in the national government to the fact that the members of Parliament, and the ministers as well, have been drawn in the past mainly from the same class as the justices of the peace, and have brought with them to a larger sphere the traditions of the local magistrate. [Sidenote: Influence of Permanent Officials in the Colonial Office.]