The Express.
London, England, 1855-03-13 00:00:00

PLACE HUNTING AND PLACE GIVING.

IF any one should seriously wonder at the absurd
inefficiency of all our public departments, there is an
anecdote told of Sir ROBERT WALPOLE finely illus-
trative of the system on which appointments in them
are bestowed, and which might set the most pone-
Tering astonishment at rest.
Lord Somebody—it does not matter who—asked
a place for a client of the excellent Minister above
named. The place, say Sir ROBERT'S biographers

pleasantly, was The Minister, howivei, did

hot insist on the Peer's absolute support, as he would
have been fairly entitled to do ; he merely stipulated
that Lord Somebody should abstain from voting with
the Opposition on any question which might arise of
a nature hostile to the Premier personally. He was

simply required to become indeed a silent accomplice,
a tacit approver of any species of imprudence or
1 political error that Sir ROBERT WALPOLE might

We have told the story of Sir ROBERT WALPOLB
because it is easier to speak of a bygone notability
than a living one : but it is notorious that the same
code of honour is practically enforced by the public

men of our own day u that which obtained formerly.
Any public man who asks a favour, or even justice,
of the Government, places himself at once under a

painful and degrading obligation. It iv so clearly
understood that he is prepared to sell himself for a

bribe ander such circumstances, that a sensitive

man would hardly like it to be known he had
even called on a minister, lest people should at
once conclude that he was trading for his conscience.
Between the individual who asks and the Minister
who gives there is usually an implied bargain, as dis-
graceful as that which Mr. CHARLES MATHEws sup-
posed to exist between the Press and the Theatres,
and which the Press so indignantly repudiated.
Every appointment which appears in the Gazette at
out of it, is the price of some man's disgrace; and
the wonder is, therefore, that there should be ss
many honed and able men in the public service as
there are, not that we should have so few.
Indeed, it is perfectly incomprehensible how pen
eons of repute, upon whose names there rests,
no other stain, can tamely bear so foul a blot as that
which sullies them in this unworthy traffic. Our
reels and Parliament-men gave up the abuse
at franking letters without condescending to a
struggle about it : why then do they juggle with us
lased this more notable scandal of patronage?
Under the present system there is no rising in our
civil or military service without votes or toadyism. If
you have the first, or can degrade your manhood byl
practising the last, you have a good chance of success :
Iburt marry a OBEY or an ELLIOTT, or be their led cap-
tain, or lend them money, and your chance becomes
a certainty ; for without doubt needy and dishonest
men still coatinne to sell indirectly, indeed,
usually, but still to sell—the appointments in their
gift for gold. Only last week an individual,
dating from the respectable neighbourhood of St.
James's-square, where people are geaerally supposed
to guess shrewdly at the ways of the world, un-
blushingly offered 401. for a commissionin the militia.
Not long ago a man, who afterwards turned out a
murderer, got his wife to ask her former mistress (a
court lady) to obtain him an appointment in the
Customs, and she did her best to get it for
him. An insolvent public man we all knew ob-
tained a large sum of money oa his personal secu-
rity on condition that he should use his influence to
procure the lender a place. A noble lord whose
father was member of a defunct cabinet sold govern-
ment contracts to worthless people; was cheated,
made a seise about it, and was found out. Another,
ander precisely the same circumstances—that is, his
father was member of a late Government—had also
a good business in the sale of small places. At
last, however, he was obliged to retire from the
trade in consequence of one of those unforeseen
events which so often frustrate the expectations of
ingenious men. He had demanded 6001. as the price
of some petty post or other. The place-hunter, a
small tradesman, was perfectly ready to pay the sum,
but neither party would trust the other. At last it
was agreed that a 6001. note should be cut in half,
and divided between them, having been thee rendered
apparently Voles to either till the contract should
be duly performed. The place-hunter also agreed
tollaY a Per ctlitage to Captain Bwrit, a half-pay officer,
who liT•d, chitty at Polo's Coffee-houool ad who had,