The Express.
London, England, 1866-04-19 00:00:00

THE AMALGAMATION OF PUBLIC OFFICES
coMMIRRION.

Considerable misapprehension has arisen as to
the objects and scope of the Commission recently
appointed to consider the propriety of amalgamat-
ing our public offices. It has been widely assumed
that the duties of the different departments were
to be fused • and that the well-known views of Sir
Charles Trevelyan on Civil Service reform, the
long Treasury training of Mr. Stephenson, the
Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and the
practical business knowledge of Mr. Goechen, had
caused these gentlemen to be selected as eminently
qualified to make the fusion economic and compre-
hensive. This is a mistake. The proposed amal-
gamation is one of buildings, not men, and the
more widely this is known the better. The pro-
ceeedings before Mr. Horsfall'm committee on
the customs and inland revenue—which sat
for twelve months, and published two bulky
blue books without agreeing upon • report—
and the carefully considered measure for improving
the mode of tax-collection which Mr. Gladstone
submitted to parliament, were, after all, but indi-
cations of the strong desire for consolidating dif-
ferent branches of the public service, which is
shared by politicians on both sides of the house.
It is not surprising, therefore, that some of our
contemporaries should fall into the error of sup-
posing the new commission for amalgamating
the government offices to be charged with the task
of inquiring into the nature of the different depart-
mental work, and the possibility of entrusting its
performance to fewer men ; or that subordinate
officials should be in a tremor of alternate hope and
fear as to the effect of the promised changes upon
their prospects and their pay. The financial
anomalies of the civil service are such, that the
mere transfer of a set of clerks from one depart-
ment to another in which analogous duties are per-
formed, might be a source of considerable profit, or
might inflict the gravest pecuniary injury ; and as
long as this is so, it is but natural that the pros-
pect of amalgamation should cause lively anxiety
to the men who would be affected by it.
But the plain truth is that Mr. Goschen and his
colleagues have before them the less difficult, but'
perhaps equally useful duty of arranging how our
different departments may be best housed, and no
questions relating to consolidation of functions,
abolition of appointments, or alteration of scales of
salary, will come before them in their present capa-
city. There are scattered over the metropolis a
vast number of buildings appropriated to public
purposes other than those belonging to the crown.
The offices of the Secretary of State for India are
at present in an hotel belonging to a joint stock
company, and there is scarcely one of the larger
departments without succursals which seem to
have squatted haphazard in the first quiet street
where a house was to be let. How far
this inconvenient state of things will be re-
medied by the stately pile of new offices
approaching completion ; to what extent existing
edifices may be altered to meet modern require-
ments ; and how much time and money may be
saved by bringing cognate departments under one
roof, it will be the business of the new Commission
to determine. The act by which the Audit-office is
amalgamated with that of the Exchequer, and the
arrangement tfor concentrating the different
branches of the Admiralty at Whitehall, will, for
example, render vacant a great portion of Somerset-
, house. The extent to which this is required by
the other departments, and the number of rooms
which may be appropriated to government function-
aries for whose offices the country is paying rent, will
doubtless be settled by these gentlemen_ Again,
such questionable arrangements as the one by
which a block of shops, in some of which hazardous
trades are carried on, are left standing, a serious
disfigurement and a permanent danger, between
two wings of a public building containing docu-
ments of the utmost importance to the country,
will, it is to be assumed, come within its scope.
There is plenty of good and useful work to be
done in this and similar directions ; but it is well
that official reformers and the public should under-
stand that the talked-of amalgamation of offices is
in reality a concentration merely, and that although
the changes to ensue may largely facilitate the
country's business, besides saving some hundreds a
year in messengers and porterage, they will not
necessarily result in a diminution of the number of
clerks.

Loudon
Yarmouth.

Nanrn M I 17771;
Aberdeen 129.8611
Leah 129.7e14
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Rochefort... 29.92 S5l &W.
Plymouth ... 217.0 W.B.W.
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Portsmouth.. hi% LB.B.
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. 29.97 48 ILL
29.96 42 LB.L
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FRIDAY.
Southerly and easterly,
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S.E. to S.W., fresh to Warms!. S.W. to lt.W. and
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PILOSARLI
C NelTllllll SATURDAY.
COASTS. &tt. to S.W. and N.W.
Anna to trail).

lack, heal to strong.
squallY.
BOUM:CM Varying winds. Mims
to TINKISTM4I.
E. B. E. to &VW:, fresh ISAMIIN. As next above.
to Wong, some rain.
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straitly,. sum; rain.
Ls next 'Dove.

WestArn—lreland, Wales, and adja-
cencias Southern—FAO& Channel and Dry ed Biscay,
Inatern—}Astward England and North Be►

DEATH or MR. HENRY Cuumuts Brt
Another of the race of " fine old English gentlemen" has
been removed from amongst us, and the news of the death
of Mr. Hairy Charles Start, of Critabell, will send a pang
of regret far beyond the county which is the graataut
sufferer by his loom Mr. Shirt was not simply a
Donet-
shire squire. Apart from his aristocratic oonnexioes, and
the town declaim which be was widely known, wee another
and a higher circle of acquaintances, those who know a man
only by lais public actions, and honour, for his benevolence
and public spirit, him whom they hays never seen. There
are many who will have to remember that for eleven
years Mr. Sturt was member for the county of Dorset
but rose of these will ever have forgotten Mr. Start as a
philanthropist—es a publicepirited landowner—as a land-
lad endeared to a large body of tenantry—and as a moat
amiable gentleman in every relation of life. For some
months it has been known that his complaint (an internal
tumour) was incurable, and the sad announcement, that
we now make, with unfeigned sorrow, will not come upon
the public unprepared. He passed away calmly and en-
tirely free from pain, about 11 o'clock on ffetur&ay night,
in the bosom of his family, tranquilly dying surrounded by
his wife. Lady Charlotte, his eldest son, Mr. Gerard Sturt,
M.P., Lady Augusta Start, and Lord Chichester, who,
like the lamented dammed, married seater of the present
Earl of Cardigan.—Sherborae Journal.
WRECK OP • PILIMIENOER STEAMER IN THE
THANES.—Yesterday evening, about 6 o'clock, coesiderable
excitement was caused by rumours that a steam vessel,
laden with passengers, had gone down in the Thames, and
(hat several persons were drowned, but it was soon ascer-
tained that the latter part of the rumour was incorrect.
It appears that the Dryad steam vessel, plying with pas-
senger between Woolwich, Oreenwieb, and London, left
Hungerford-pier about 5 o'clock, having, fortunately, but
few passengers on board beyond the crew, and after
taking in several more passengers at the Temple and
Blackfriare piers, she proceeded down the river, and
when near All-billows-pier, London-bridge, from some
cause, which is as yet unexplained, she struck with
groat force on the foreshore, the result being that
her rudder was carried away, and the vessel sustained
such injuries that she commenced filling with water
rapidly. As might be expected, the utmost consternation
prevailed amongst the passengers, and not without reason,
as the vessel was evidently fast going down. The captain
and crew, however, behaved with perfect coolness, and
fortanately,!the most efficient assistance being at hand,
the whole of the passengers were rescued by small craft
and other vessels, and immediately afterwards the steamer
completely sank, nothing being now visible but her funnel.
The captain and crew remained on the vessel until after
all others were out, and was partially immersed in the
water ; and the mate, whew exertions were most praise-
worthy, had to swim for his life, but was fortunately
picked up by a small boat.
PAINFUL OCCURRENCE ON THE SOLWAY FIRTH.—
For some time past a gang of five workmen front Carlisle
have been engaged with an engine in driving piles along
the marsh at Drumburgh, on the English side of the Solway
Firth, with the view of protecting the land, which belongs
to the Earl of Lonsdide, from the encroachments of the
tide. On Monday last they were so engaged, and at 12
o'clock had retired to a little hut which they had erected
for the purpose of eating their dinners. The tide for the
day was a high one (above twenty-one feet), and the
weather, which was unusually boisterous, brought
up a still heavier flood. These circumstances,
however, bad not been taken into account by the
workmen, who having finished their repeat, discovered to
their dismay that their hut was surrouutled for a wide
area by a considerable depth of water. They could not
open the door of their hut from the pressure of the water
hut, escaping through an aperture, succeeded in making
their way to a raft of logs moored on the marsh. The
wind continuing to blow with great violence, the chain
holding the log on which they had taken shelter snapped,
and the frail raft, with its living freight, immediately
drifted out to sea. The log fortunately, however, washed
up against the pile-driving machine, when the men
snatched at the guys or stays, which four of them suc-
ceeded in laying hold of, :and were afterwards rescued.
The fifth man failed, and, still straddling on the log, was
washed out to sea. Denial forebodings are entertained
as to his fate.
JUMPING OVERBOARD. —An inquest was held at
the Red Lion, fitubington, on Monday, by E. Hoskins,
Esq., coroner, on view of the body of William Stones,
Esq., a gentleman who, when in an unsound state of mind,
jumped overboard front the ship Norreandy„in Southamp-
ton Water, about two months ago, on his passage from
Jersey. The body was found seethed upon the 'bore be-
tween Browndown and Hill Head by one of the coast-
guardinen early on Sunday morning. Verdict, " Found
drowned."— West Sussex Gazette.
THE JAMAICA A ARNING.—The Boston Christian
Register says :—"Wludever a few, ignorant, prejudiced, or
mercenary men may wish or design, it is the evident pur-
pose of the majority of Americans that this problem
shall be solved so as to save us from a repetition of the
Jamaica butcheries. We intend to scatter the spelling-
book and reader through the whole South. Though school-
houses he burned, and, it may be in some instances teachers
be killed, the black man will have the privilege of learning
to read. If there is one idea rooted and woven into the
minds of the masses, who will in the future rule this
country, it is that which recognises and insists on univer-
sal education. This idea will become a eat north and
south, east and west, among blacks and whites. Again,
our institutions are based on the principle that government
must emanate from the people, and that no class, as a
class, shall be excluded from the ballot. This is the
American idea, and though it has been confronted by one
entirely its antagonist, the latter has had to yield. What
the war could not prevent will not be stayed by presi-
dential vetoes. American ideas of education and
liberty will rule America. All efforts to withstand
the onward progress will be of no nvaiL The
triumph may be retarded. but it will merely come at
last. We may have our Bull Rune, and Chancellonsalles,
and Red River disasters, but these will at last followed
by eictory. The horrid scenes in Jamaica teach an to
beware how we delay or postpone the work of education
and the exercise of justice. Four millions of freedmen in
a republic, without equal rights and privileges, are vastly
more dangerous to the national welfare than the same
number of slaves. Tho voice then which comes fromJallllLiCLI
is one of solemn warning. Let us begin by being just to
the freedmen, and then will come the blessed fruit of
righteousness. They will add to the wealth, strength, and
happiness of the nation.
A DEPUTY'S Vs'oug—" It is a laborious life," says
the France, " that of a deputy actively performing his
duties, or of a member of the government endearourinp to
convince the chamber. The public ices only the brilliant
side of that agitated existence. But those persons who
have applauded M. Thiers or M. de Forcade Is
Roquette, ought to witness the spectacle which follows
great public sitting. By seven o'clock the mass of the
members have left, only those remaining who have spoken
and who correct the text of their speeches. That task
is often prolonged far into the night. After the
sitting of Saturday last, M. Thiers, aided by his
secretary who had joined him, set to work after
having put on warm linen brought him by his valet,
and at 3 in the morning was still at work correcting the
proofs brought him from the printing-office. He bad near
him a roll of bread and a bowl of soup, of which he took a
spoonful now and then. But, in fact, that little man seems
made of iron ; and no one can say which is most to be
admired, the vivacity of his mind or the stout constitution
of his body."
" I don't miss my church so much as you
yippee," add a lady to her minister, who bad called upon
her during her illness, " for I make Betsy sit up by the
window as soon as the bells begin to chime, and tell me
who are going to church, and whether they have got
anything now."—Asieriosit paper.
A farmer near Wincanton has a cow which
last week brought forth three calves. The cow and her
progeny are doing well.