The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-12-01
Nineteen Hearts Broken.

Nineteen IteurtS bfOkchs
From ne Tribune.
Il is the part of the charitable to condole with
the unfortunate, while ybody can exhibit
alacrity in congratulating the lucky. Twenty
gentlemen, with hearts as hopeful as a May
morning, started for the Office of Surveyor of
The Port of Philadelphia, and nineteen of these
have nov succumbed to late from which,
when there is only one office to give and twice
ten who want it, nineteen wretches can by no
possibility escape. Joseph Severns was the
Hlucky man, while the names of his martyred
Vcompetitors are unknown to fame. But shall
we be pitiless, simply because distress is anony-
nous? 1t is true that we raised our note of
w9rning. We told the Philadelphia nineteen
and the nineteen in all other places, that
given one Office and twenty applicants, twenty
hearts les one must be aoerated by disappoint.
ment But they wouldn't believe us. They
never 90. Now, being out of pocket and out of
spints, with ample leisure to survey their tate,
since they are not to survey for Uncle Sam,
Obliged to go home and meet their wives, and
nUOwn up to foolish expenditure of the family
&unds, oppressed by the sympathy of friends
who do not care two buttons for their mistor-
tune with the lst OF January in the yearly
accounts approaching, with thai touching con-
hdence which they had in the President rudely
destroyed, with the alternative of working or
of starving staring them in the face, the ago.
nized nineteen having or not as the case may
be, settled their Washington tavern bills, must
in Philadelphia, and find but poor relief in
consigning to the hottest of hot places the soul
OF the victorious Joseph Severns.
Such is lite, and such is luck. We do not stop
10 inquire whether Joseph's genius for survey
ing is greater or less than that of the rejected;
whether his petition was or was not q yard
longer than the scrolls of the defeated; whether
that hattul of confidential and laudatory letters
which he carried, bore weI2htier signatures than
the ep,stles which have failed to steady his
rivals; whether in him we have a notable in
anfp, ,apit ron nd i'm ha 9th
example OF virtue under cloud; these are in
vestigations for those who are curious in the
cause Of things, and restive under the stimulus
OF why" and "Wheretore;" these are specula-
tions, not for us, but for the humiated
and harassed nineteen, every one OF
+ whom, taking somebody by the button, could
. tale unfold of modest merit neglected, and of
4 tbe reprehe nslble magic by which Joseph Severns
y has busted the eyes Of Mr.. johnson. We are
Very glad that we and our buttons are out of
s. fheir reach. To hear a man talk of getting an
office is bad enough-to hear him talk OF his
failure to get it, is what Damon would not
/ have patiently borne IN "Pythias." There is
= indeed, in this case an expedient which suggests
Itself The broBen-hearred nineteen can hold
little meetings, and, made friends by com.
munty OF sorrow, can pour their grief and
grumblng into each others ears. 1 S nobody
else feels the least interest IN the matter, except
passionate desire not to be bored with it, and
as the nineteen must talk, we rather plume our
selves upon the humanity of this suggestion.
Nay il these meetings could be public, and the
i nineteen, with slow music between the speeches.
could tell to the world their experience, how
many honest fellows might be persuaded or
warned from entering upon that fatal pursuit
(which, whether successful or not is sure to
bring botheraton, bad dreams, and days of bit
terness There would, indeed, be one draw
back To learn how many friends are of the
summer species, and what tremendous liars men
can sometimes Conrive to be without ultering
a fb upon which you can put your finger, would
excite but low and despairing views of human
4 nature, and lead to a chronic and incurable
melancholy.
But this would be no worse than the hope de-
ferred which maketh the heart sick, and the
money wasted which maketh the purse haccid,
4 the eager desire and inevitable disappointment,
the knee-crooking, the fawning, and the failure
after all. There is something mparatively
manly and noble in submitting ones claims or
qualifications to the suffrage OF the people, and
4 although in such contest it is pleasauter
surely to succeed there is no shame in being
beaten; but to set traps for an interview with
the Presid ent, to dog the doors of Secretaries,
and to lay siege to the bedrooms of members of
Congress- to waste time, money, and self
respect, and after all to fall is enough to damp
mans pluck Tor the rest of his wretched life
time; and any one OF the nineteen gentlemen
above mentioned, IL he has not forgotten no "
to speak the truth Will admit that we are right.