THE CIVIL SERVICE.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 905, 26 December 1871, Page 3

THE CIVIL SERVICE.

A writer in a late number of the " Cornhill Magazine " Consule Julio, tells a good deal of the rotten state which administration had reached under the late French Empire. He describes the officials in a second rate town as follows : The number of Government functionaries which Touscretins, in common with most other French towns, possessed were innumerable, unimaginable, ensconced everywhere ; roosting on every perch, lodged in every conceivable nook ; very rats in number, cohesiveness, and rodent appetite. Perhaps I may as well give a £list of them : —A prefect, a secretary-general, and three councillors of prefecture; a president of the tribunal, four assistant judges, a stipendiary justice of the peace, two clerks of court and a public prosecutor • a receiver-general of taxe3 and two sub-receivers ; a verificator of weights and measures, a chief of the custom-house, and two lieutenants; a high-keeper of the woods and forests (there were none to keep}, and itwo sub-keepers ; a commissary of police and a deputy-com-missary ; a captain of gendarmerie, and his lieutenant; a rector of academy a postmaster, a keeper of the archives (which consisted in one deal box full of papers), and two sub-keepers; a chief engineer, an inspector of roads and bridges, and four assistant engineers ; a bishop, two vicars-general, one dean, one archdeacon, six canons, two rectors, and eleven curates: tailing upon which gallant procession was an army of five hundred and thirtyseven clerks postmen, wood-rangers, custom-house officers, tax-gatherers, gendarmes, beadles, vergers, policemen, inspectors of quart-pots and firlots, tipstaff court ushers, prison gaolers, prison governors, and police spies—all of whom, without exception, were remunerated out of the public purse. To this a Sydney paper adds: We suspect the sarcasm of the passage applies to more countries than France. We know of one Government that is perpetually beset by hosts of hungry waiters for places and offices, and whose chief wish is to serve their country. We believe that Government appoints more men to various offices than the country requires, or can pay for. The result is that every now and then an uncomfortable balance against the country of some ten or twelve millions is increased by an additional debt of a quarter or half of a million. To meet the obligation arising out of this addition to the public debt fresh taxes.must .be levied, or else our excellent friend the constable must be over-run by borrowing a little more. : In this way public affairs have been kept moving, in the country to which we allude, for the last fifteen years, and they doubtless will continue to move on in the same style until some political convulsion shall furnish the means of cleansing the Augean stable.