The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-04 00:00:00

Place-Hunters and Pensions.

(From Fraser's Magazine.)
The late Bishop of Durham (Villiers) was the victim of
an accidental and seemingly insignificant circumstance.
The appointment of the son-in-law, whose sole disqualifi-
cation was the relationship, would probably have passed
unchallenged, had he not rejoiced in the attractive name of
Cheese. The value of a bishop's daughter in the matri-
monial market is as high as if no such misadventure had
occurred. Masterships in Chancery are no longer con-
ferred from private or political motives, because they aro
no longer conferred at all. When Jekyll, at past eighty,
proposed to resign upon a pension, on the plea that he was
no longer fit for the duties of the office, Lord Eldon com-
forted him with the remark that he was quite as fit as ever
—which was the truth. The little law Jekyll ever knew
was common law, and he accepted his mastership in the
same spirit in which Colonel Hanger answered Pitt, when
told that the place he wanted was not a sinecure. "Give
it me, and leave me alone to make it one." The unabashed
profligacy of place-hunters, and the enormous gains of
statesmen prior to the present century, may afford com-
fort to modern economists and financial reformers; and
we may begin with the patriots of the Revolution. "At
this time (1688)," says Lord Macaulay, "Montague's
wishes pointed to the Church. At a later period, when he

_ .
was a peer with twelve thousand a-year, when his villa on
the Thames was regarded as the most delightful of all
suburban retreats, when ho was ready to revel in Tokay,
from the Imperial cellar, and in soups made out of birds
nests brought from the Indian Ocean, and costing three
guineas a-piece, his enemies were fond of reminding him
that there had been a time when he had eked out by his
wits an income of barely fifty pounds, when he had been
happy with a trencher of matton chops and a flagon of ale
from the college buttery, and when a tithe pig was the
rarest luxury for which he dared to hope." if Montague
came honestly by his twelve thousand a year, he must have
saved it out of his official emoluments. Speaking of the
last days of Queen Anne, Lord Stanhope says that "service
of the country was then a service of vast emolument " Ho
computes the yearly income of the Duke of Marlborough (e x-
elusive of Blenheim and Parliamentary grants, &c.) at
£54,825, and the Duchess's offices and pensions at £9,500.
Lord Dartmouth, in a note to Burnet, computes their
joint salaries at £90,000. Sir Robert Walpole, who lived
sumptuously and laid out enormous sums in buildings and
pictures, more than quadrupled his hereditary estate, be-
sides providing for his sons by patent places of the aggre-
gate value of £14,000 a year. Fox, the first Lord Hol-
land, could not have made less than half a Million out of
the perquisites of office. With the exception of Lord
Melville, the two or three last generations of British
statesmen have been free from the suspicion of peculation
and venality, although neither Pitt nor Fox was remark-
able for extreme delicacy in contracting pecuniary obliga-
tions. When the secession of the Duke of Portland, with
a large section of the Whig party, towards the commence-
ment of the French Revolution, deprived Fox of all im-
mediate chance of office, he stooped to accept an annuity
of £1,500 by way of compensation. When Pitt's debts
had grown more than ordinarily embarrassing he allowed
£12,000 to be raised by way of loan amongst his friends
and supporters, some of whom (like Rose) were trading on
him as a main source of preferment. There is still a startling
amount of laxity where the public purse is concerned ;
and few people see any harm in giving a consul-
ship or minor governorship to a ruined spendthrift, or a
commissionership to a relative without any imaginable
qualification. No one complained of Mr. Disraeli for pro-
viding handsomely for a brother at one of the Boards at
Somerset House, nor even for awarding himself a pension
of £2,000 a-year, for barely two years' service, under
circumstances which laid this latest act of his official life
peculiarly open to comment. It is the capricious nature
of public opinion, tolerant by habits, but intolerant by fits,
that operates as a snare to high functionaries ; and the
moral to be drawn from Lord Westbury's fall is, that there
is no true safety except in the strictest absence from ne-
potism and the steady uncompromising adherence to prin-
ciple.

" THE LIFE OF MAN SYMBOLIZED BY THE MONTHS
OF THE YEAR," by Mr. R. Pigott' will be published by the
Messrs. Longmans, in November, with illustrations by

Mr. John Leighton.
On Friday the remains of the late Mr. Justice
Haliburton, the well-known author of " Sam Slick," were
conveyed from Gordon House, the residence of the deceased,
to Isleworth churchyard, for interment. The funeral,
which was conducted M a private and unostentatious man-
ner, took place at noon, the corpse being followed to the
grave by the friends of the late Mr. Haliburton. The latter
were taken in four mourning coaches to the place of burial.
The Rev. S. R. Anderson, 8.A., read the service for the
dead. Most of the houses in Isleworth were wholly or
partially closed, in which place Mr. Haliburton was greatly
extremely quiet
respected and esteemed. As above stated, the funeral
there (according being toscarcely h ihis
o wn a
dozenwis
wish) was
people an
on
the
ground
one,
d n
addi-
tion to the mourners.

FREE SUNDAY AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.—Yester-
terday about 15,000 persons, shareholders, share-
holders' friends, and the members of the Crystal Palace
share clubs and their friends were admitted to the palace
and grounds by free tickets. The bulk of the company
belonged to the middle class. The weather was magnifi-
cent,
and all present seemed thoroughly to enjoy the privi-
lege. During the afternoon a selection of sacred music
Was performed on the grand organ by Mr. Coward, and a
short address was delivered by Mr. Baxter Langley in ex-
planation of the principles of the National Sunday League,
under whose auspices the arrangements were carried out.
It was announced that shortly a free Sunday would be
given to the letter-carriers of the metropolis.

A SCOTCH FARMER OF THE OLD SCHOOL—Mr.
M'lan, senior, was a man past eighty, but fresh and
hale for his years. His figure was slight and wiry, his
face a fresh pink, his hair like snow. Age, though it had
bowed him somewhat, had not been able to steal the fire
from his eye, nor the vigour from his limbs. He entered
the army at an early age ; carried colours in Ireland
before the century came in ; was with Moore at Corunna ;
followed Wellington through the Peninsular battles; was
with the 42d at Quatre Bras, and hurt when the brazen
cuirassiers came charging through the tall rye grass ; and,
finally, stood at Waterloo in a square that crumbled before
the artillery and cavalry charges of Napoleon—crumbled,
but never flinched ! . . . Wlan was an isleman of the
old school ; penetrated through every drop of his blood
with pride of birth, and with a sense of honour which was
like a good conscienee.—Alexander Smith's Summer in
Skye.
LARGE TAKE OF MACKEREL.--The last spring tide
in St. Bride's Bay, Pembrokeshire, brought immense shoals
of mackerel close to the shore, and the fishermen succeeded
in capturing tons of the fish with their nets. Large takes
were also made at Neyland, Milford, and all around the
Pembrokeshire coast. It is eight years since such large
shoals of mackerel were captured on the coast befor