Many retired in the middle of it with a conviction that they must seek their fortunes at the bar, or in medical pursuits, or some other comparatively easy walk of life.
Others were rejected on the fifth or sixth day as being deficient in conic sections, or ignorant of the exact principles of hydraulic pressure.

And even those who were retained were so retained, as it were, by an act of grace.

The Weights and Measures was, and indeed is, like heaven--no man can deserve it.
No candidate can claim as his right to be admitted to the fruition of the appointment which has been given to him.

Henry Norman, however, was found, at the close of his examination, to be the least undeserving of the young men then under notice, and was duly installed in his clerkship.
It need hardly be explained, that to secure so high a level of information as that required at the Weights and Measures, a scale of salaries equally exalted has been found necessary.

Young men consequently enter at L100 a year.