Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-01-22

TWU ThlfLEo.
while the many headed government Of
bigots, pharisees, tyrants and thieves,
which goes by the name Radical, is spend
ing its hundreds of millions in the South,
reconstructing, feeding Migrants, and
providing for the cormorants who hang
about it for perquisites and plumber, we
discover there are some little pickings
and stealngs going on in other quarters
to help out the trifing aggregate of ma
tional Indebtedness which is destined for
centuries to come to grind the faces OF
the poor. We do not stop now to Tell all
of these things, but only to pick out OF
the multitude two comparatively small
trihes, which are almost without pre-
tense of utility to excuse them. On each
of our great lakes there is revenue cut
ter, costing, say hundred thousand dol
lars originally and kept aaoat at an ex-
pense of fifty thousand year The Os-
wego Palladium thus speaks of one of
them:
Now there is a romance that these
revenue cutters are placed here by the
Government for the purpose ofguarding
our lake frontier from customs frauds
for the prevention of smuggling If the
hallucinaton exists in the minds of any
that these revenue cutters ever have,
ever do, or ever will in any way, directly
or indirectly, aid in this work, we would
disabuse them. Since these government
vessels have been upon our lakes they
have never, so far as we can discover,
benefited the Customs Department to
the value of one dollar. The Salmon z.
Chase, which has been for some time
past upon Lake Ontario, and has during
the last past summer paid us several
visits, and sailed about at intervals from
Ogdensburg to Oswego, Sodus and Char
lotte, is simply very handsome steamer,
| with handsome guns that are never shot
ted, handsome young officers who never
| do anything that we can see except strut
about the decks of the cutter in gold lace,
and who seem to have given up the at
tempt to make themselves believe that
they have anything to do except to pre-
serve a distant and contemptuous de-
meanor towards those who support them
| in idleness. This Salmon P. Chase cost
us about one hundred thousand dollars
and the expense of maintaining her and
her crew is between fifty and sixty thou
sand dollars per year.
1t is notorious that these cutters do no
good, and that the protection to the reve-
nue., such as it is, is exclusively by Off
GERS on shore. The same paper also has
the following account of another such a
triae:
The Invalid Corps was originally de-
signed, as its name indicates, for the
purpose Of retaining in the service, du-
ring the employment of the able.bodied
troops. men who had been disabled by
wounds or sickness. Being unfit for field
duty, they were 10 be employed for garri-
son purposes. This was right and proper.
In the beginning the institution worked
benefcially. Soon, however, the Invalid
or Veteran Reserve Corps began to re-
ceiye accsssions from all quarters. Gar
rison duty, with good pay and light work,
was a temptation, and soon the Invalid
Corps became refuge for what is called
dead beats" whose invalidity consisted
in natural distate for work. The corps
at this time is largely composed Of this
sort of gentry, although it is but just to
say that there are many good and true
men in it. But it is a perfectly unueces-
sary thing We do not need IL Each Of
the regiments Of the Invalid Corps cost
the taxpayers a million dollars a year
and it ism t worth it, We cannot afford
TO feed these robust invalids, If theJ
were needed tomorrow or any othel
time, they would be of no use in thu
field.
Ifthe cutters we're sold and the Invalit
Corps abolished few millions might b
saved. But what of all that in thes
nush times, when we have all the bless
ings Of radical rule.