Question

When the municipal archive of Ravenhill moved to its new premises in March, few residents noticed. The old building, a cramped Victorian annex behind the courthouse, had never attracted visitors, and its closure was announced in a single paragraph on the council’s website. Yet within a month the archive was the subject of unusual public interest, not because of its new glass façade but because of what the removal men had found: a ledger, wedged behind a radiator, recording every loan the town’s savings bank had granted between 1921 and 1934. Historians had assumed that such records were lost in the flood of 1947. The ledger shows that the bank lent far more cautiously during the Depression than local legend maintains; fewer than one application in five was approved, and nearly all the successful applicants owned property. Local newspapers, which have long celebrated the bank as a lifeline for ordinary families, have been slow to acknowledge the finding. The archivist, Mrs Idris, has declined to draw conclusions. “A single ledger tells us what was done,” she said, “not why it was done.” She has, however, asked the council to fund a project that would match the ledger’s names against census returns, a task she estimates will occupy two researchers for a year. Mrs Idris’s remark “A single ledger tells us what was done, not why it was done” shows that she

Accepted Answer

separates recorded evidence from interpretation

Answer

considers the bank’s lending policy unjust

Answer

expects the council to reject her request

Answer

doubts that the ledger is a genuine record

Mrs Idris’s remark “A single ledger tells us what was done, not why it was done” shows that she

«Мәтінмен жұмыс» тақырыбынан тағы