Honesty Paid Best That Time.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 29 December 1891, Page 3

Honesty Paid Best That Time.

Sixty years ago, there were in the Long Eoom of the London < 'ustomhoiiso twelve officers styled " coeketwriters " ; they wrote certificates that good 3 had been duly entered and the duties paid. They were also known as patent officers, because appointed for life by letters patent, from the Crown. Their salaries were nomina.l, sixty pounds sterling a year, but they were permitted to remunerate themselves by extorting tees from the merchants — fees which, in some cases, amounted to a thousand pounds a year. In IHM, the ■ Treasury determined to abolish patent offices, and called upon the twelve coclcet writers to furnish a pR-tement of their emoluments. The office; s, ignorant of the Treasury's purpose, imagined that the Government intended to impose an income tax. Ten of the writers, therefore retnrned a statement which understated j their fees by several hundred pounds. ■ The other two furnished an honest j statement. In a few days ten clerks were surprised and disgusted and two were astonished but pleased. The Treasury notified the cocket-writers that their offices would be abolished, and that they would be compensated by pensions rated according to the returns they had themselves furnished. There were gnashing of teeth and broad smiles in the Long Eoom. One of the two honest cocket-'writers enjoyed bis pension for fifty-two years, during which time the Treasury paid him fifty-two thousand pounds.