THE CITY COUNCIL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 783, 5 April 1910, Page 7

THE CITY COUNCIL.

HOW APPOINTMENTS ARE MADE. Sir,—The City Council decides that it wants a person to overlook some of its funny ways, and by advertisement invites applications for the position. Applicants are to send in their applications on, we will say, "August 27, and the applications are to state age, to be accompanied with a photo, and a medical certificate. All this ia done by the applicants. On September 2 an application by telegram is made. No formal application containing the requirements arrives in duo course. The late applicant somehow induces the Town Clerk to interview a resident. As the result of that interview the late applicant receives the appointment though his application was in every way informal. I want to know what right the Town Clork had to interfere in the mutter? lie is only a servant of .the council, and as such .was most decidedly exceeding his duty in intervening on behalf of a candidate, who was-to all intents and purposes "non est." How many times has the Town Clerk interfered in other applications? As the Chinaman stated as ono ground for a divorce from his wifo that "she was too much uin boss," so it may be said of the Town Clerk. The wonder is that none of'tho applicants for the- position in question have objected to the mode and manner of the appointment, but I suppose it is that they were not aware of the funny ways of the council, until the evidence of the acting-Town Clerk at the recent trial.

Whtit the citizens have to consider is this: Is it worth while the City Council calling for applications for a particular position, and requiring the applicants to comply with certain conditions? Would it not save ■ expense, and also a lot of trouble to the would-be applicants, if it stated in the advertisement that no applicant who complied with the oonditions would be chosen? ami in paren- ■ theses, that any person (not one of the special applicants) who would telegraph, to tho Town Clerk and name some friend to be interviewed by that official would receive, the appointment? Has any councillor pluck enough to move that the whole matter relating to the appointment be inquired into? There is another peculiar thing about ttys appointment that apparently has not come out to the general public, and that also should be innuired into. ; It is the terms under which the applicant was appointed. l It is "commonly known amongst a good many that tho appointee does practically what he pleases—l am, etc.,- ' . '.".'."' A. GATTCHERIE.