Star.
London, England, 1830-04-01 00:00:00

REFORM.

Mir grand Reforms arc going on in a grand style of excision.
iltrks enjoying the extravagant salaries of twenty shillings a week,
.ire forced to submit to the pruning knife, or the sabre, we forgot
which ; and serve their insulted country at the rate of ten. Diggers
and delvers, at the rate of a shilling a day, are allowed the honour
of contributing to the preservation of their country by the offering,
of sixpences, and there is still a hope, that by further judicious re-
forms of this vigorous, and yet easy kind, our beloved country may
yet he saved. But we should wish to know, whether the gallant
officers in possession of trivial places from fifteen hundred to five
thousand pounds a year and upwards, continue to receive their half.
pay. and all those little emolumentary adjuncts, termed allowances,
torage money, office money, &c. which makes so pleasant an addi-
tion to the establishment of a military gentleman emulous of serving
his country, on the best possible terms for himself. We believe
that those gallant gentlemen have not sacrificed a single shilling,
and that they receive their half-pay as regularly in their sump-
tuously furnished apartments in the Horse Guards and Dow.
ning.street, as if they were lounging out their mornings in an attic
in Whitehall, and lounging out their evenings at the United Service.
—We should also like to know, hew many of the holders of good
things in the shape of military inspectorship', commissioners of
clothing, &c. have been mulcted of their half-pay, since they began
to feel the public purse dropping its liberality on them in the shower
of pensions and sinecures ? Now for another branch : Officers'
Widows—The question whether officers' widows should continue
to enjoy pensions, after marrying again, is under the consideration
of Government. It is urged that the practice is, in fact, rewarding
one man for the services performed by another, and encouraging im-
provident connections which lead to misery, while they perpetuate
one burthen on the country and create another. All this may be
very well ; though in the scantiness of the widow's pension, whose
general sum is 301. or 401. a year, there seems to be no powerful
temptation for fortune hunters. But may we be suffered to ask, is
there any idea of reducing the allowance of the paymasters of those
widows' pensions, whose salaries amount to a thousand a year each ;
tie whole actual business being of the simplest nature, and done by
clerks,and the whole trouble of the paymasters being to sign the receipt
for their own quarter's salary, and put the money in their pockets.
—We should also like to know, whether, when those poor devils of
officers' widows arc forced to give up their petty provision, the
widows of the placemen about Whitehall are to be allowed to keep
their pensions, and marry whom they please, thus to fasten upon the
public purse ? That there are such individuals, and tolerably well
known to the public, we believe. And we ask, what is justice, If it
be not even-handed ? But the more unfortunate consequence of this
regulation will be, not a saving to the country, nor the prevention
of those marriages, which have been here with such ludicrous pomp
called" rewarding one man for the service of another ;" but an in.
crease of prevarication, a temptation to perpetual falsehood imposed
on those widows. They will marry, if they like; as what woman
was ever capable of thwarting her inclination for any thing, from
prudential motives ? Not a sixpence will be saved ; but a vast many
protestations of perpetual widowhood will be wrung from the unfor.
tomtit.% who have plunged into second matrimony, with a full de-
termination to let go the public allowance on no condition whatever.
We hope that oaths will not be required, for though a promise is
equally binding in honour, yet the oath is a more for.nidable mode
of meeting the temptation ; and in the multitude of instances, the
temptation would carry the day. We hope so foolish an attempt
will be abandoned. It must be nugatory on any considerable scale,
and even on the smallest, it will be only a temptation to weakness
and poverty to commit falsehood.— Whittaker's Monthly Magazine.