Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Records of Southhampton: A Brief Account of Some of the Borough Documents
Yet this store Of historical treasure, great as it is, represents but a fraction of what oskould have been preserved, and what would have been preserved and handed down to us if the care and diligence Of the Old rulers of Southampton had been equal to the care and diligence of those who now have charge of its business and its records. It is difficult for us today to realise with what gross and wanton neglect, till some quarter of a century ago, in most towns, the Old documents were treated how they lay about dust-coated and worm-eaten in inextricable confusion, how they were open to the depredations Of any curious or interested person, how they were used for the lighting of fires, how they were carted away by the load and dumped down with the refuse of the town in order to make more room in the Offices where they had, till then, been allowed to lie.2 The only marvel is that SO much has survived to the present day, that all was not destroyed SO soon as its immediate purpose was fulfilled. Perhaps the carelessness that was too indifferent to preserve was matched by a laziness too apathetic to clear out and destroy; perhaps there was an uneasy consciousness in the minds Of old time Town Clerks that it was rarely possible to know when the immediate purpose of a borough record was fulfilled, and that it was easier and safer to leave things in the hands of providence or chance than to adopt the drastic measures of the Spring-cleaner.
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