Appendix, Nos. 23, & 24. ON FEES, GRATUITIES, & cj • the county, while the duty is received by the Collector of Excise for the '' city. If, as we presume, the lodging of the register of a Malthouse with the Collector is intended as a notice to him of the charge tfie Trader is liable to, it follows of course that the registers for the district of the city of Dublin should be lodged with the Collector of that district. The Inspector General is required occasionally to inspect the several Malthouscs and stores within his district, and from time to time to examine and compare the state of them with the entries made in the stock- books, and on the discovery of any misconduct or negligence in the discharge of duty by the inferior Officers, to report the same to the Commissioners of Excise. The Fees usually received by the Inspectors appear to have been five Guineas from every Maltster at the time of his taking out a licence, and are stated to be paid to them for certifying or signing the register of Appendix, No l8 each Malthouse for which such licence is required. We are however informed, that since Michaelmas 1806, this part of the duty of the Inspector General has been discontinued. After this description of the duties of the Officers, we have to suggest, that instead of visiting the Maltster at nearly the same hour, never at night, and seldom until after the hour specified in the notice to wet, the duty of the Officers ( in cities and towns where the number would permit) should be so arranged, that every Malthouse might be visited by a succession of Officers at uncertain hours both of the day and night, and frequently pre- vious to the appointed hour of wetting, in like manner as we have pro- posed in our Report upon the Distilleries. The view which we have taken of the Inspector's duty appears not only to require him, from time to time, to compare and check the dips and gauges of depending processes, with the entries in the stock- books of the inferior Officers, but also to examine into the state of those books. The Appendix, No 22, incorrectness, however, of the books which we inspected, warrants the in- ference that the Inspectors could not generally have understood that any a , , . . . r . . ° , ..... . Appendix, No. 7. such duty was required or them *; they seem to have confined their attention to making a comparison between the state of the house as found at theij- visits, and the entry made at the last preceding visit of the inferior Officers, and to have left all other remarks which the state of the books might sug- gest, to the Examiner of Gaugers and Surveyors books; but to any respon- sibility on that account, the Examiner of Gaugers and Surveyors books Appendk> No. does not subscribe, stating the whole business of his office to be, to take care that the calculations from the entries of the dimensions, dips, and gauges of the several vessels and floors, are truly made, and the charges of duty correctly drawn. To this uncertainty with respect to the duties of the Inspectors and the Examiner of Gaugers and Surveyors books, we are disposed to attribute the continuance of a series of entries either contra- Append*,^. 27. dictory, or manifestly fictitious, which was observable in many of the stock- . books to which we had occasion to recur. Appendix, No. 7. The Law provides, that in no case the charge of duty should be made for a less quantity than four- fifths of the content of the cistern, making an allowance of one- fifth for the increase of bulk which Corn, when fully steeped, will generally experience. It is obvious, therefore, that whenever the cistern has been filled with dry Barley to the proportion of more than four- fifths, the Corn, at the conclusion of the steeping, will almost invariably ^ ^ ^ be swollen above the altitude of the. cistern, and that the dips taken at thai J7' D