In the smaller world of London--yes, Mr. Gigadibs, the _smaller_ world--observe, it is a concession to your stubborn prejudices to call it a world at all, but if a world I protest that the qualifying epithet must be resorted to--in the smaller world of London we have seen that the existing collections of records may be roughly associated in certain groups or classes according as they are regarded as belonging to the evidences bearing upon (1) the history of the monarchy and the development of the constitution; (2) the history of English law and all that concerns such matters as procedure, judicature, and the like; (3) the history of the City of London--of its great guilds, its customs, privileges, and commerce; (4) personal and family history, and (5) lastly, ecclesiastical history, including in that the history of the religious houses. In the wider area we should have to make a similar classification, but in doing so we should have to add one class of documents very inadequately represented in the London collections; I mean those which supply an apparatus for studying the history of the land. And here we are face to face with a serious difficulty. The evidences, which until the present century were so intimately associated with a landed estate that they passed with the estate as an almost necessary proof that possession had been conveyed, had in the lapse of ages grown in many instances to an aggregate of documents whose bulk was prodigious and its mere stowage embarrassing. Where the capital mansion of an extensive property was proportionate to the acreage it was easy to set apart one room as a muniment-room, in which thousands of charters, court rolls, bailiffs’ accounts, and other records were deposited and sometimes arranged with great care and precision; but where a great estate was broken up, or there was no longer any important residence upon it, the evidences often found their way into very strange depositories. The family solicitor had to find a home for them, and to do so was often extremely inconvenient; or the capital mansion became a farm-house, and the evidences were packed in boxes and sent up to the garrets under the roof, in some cases were bundled into the hayloft. By the legislation which simplified the conveyance of land and rendered it no longer necessary to go back to the beginning of time in order to prove a title, the ancient “evidences” became at once valueless for all practical purposes. They became not only useless but odious lumber, and a process of quietly getting rid of them set in and has been steadily carried on to the present moment. The rolls of manor courts and courts leet, which give an insight into the daily life of our forefathers, and which may still be met with in large numbers, dating back to the days of Henry the Third, were destroyed by tens of thousands. Documents which could have thrown light upon some of the most interesting problems which