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 over them all, transmogrified all their operations, and cursed the Commons to the very end. Under its weakening influence, the American imitation never attained the sturdy, well-ordered vitality of its British original, but like a chronic invalid required constant nursing and propping up, until, after a long decline and a series of severe shocks, it ended as it had begun, in poverty and wretchedness.

Further, the administration of this super-economical system was full of difficulty, and was so clumsily handled as to result in an enormous waste of energy. Instead of relying on their paid experts, the whole Corporation (or in later times the Faculty) conscientiously grappled with every petty problem and perplexity which their perverse principle produced. The constant strain of holding down expenses, the minute adjustment of details, the disputes with the Overseers on questions of policy, the suppression of revolts among the half-starved commoners, and the worries incident to “the management of the business of purveying,” made up, as S. A. Eliot expresses it, “a large part of the employment of the Corporation; and it is amusing to see, term after term, and year after year, the formal votes, passed by this venerable body of seven ruling and teaching elders, regulating the price at which a cue (a half-pint) of cider,