New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-06-07
PENSION p4UPERS.

After all, there are always compensations
If our rogues and rufians, by dint OF adher-
ence to the trade of politics, are sure In the
end of municipal or Government offices, they
are at least forced to stay in them as long as
they draw their salaries. There is scarcely such
trick possible as creeping out of the public
eye to a snug corner of a retired list, there to
MUNICH at fat pension for the rest of their
lives. If we would believe the Irish press,
however, half of the peers and commoners IN
Great Britain have become greedy Jack
Horners, and have made of with piece OF
Government PIE, each to find plum for
himself. The Estimates for n bring to light
some of the peculiar beauties of this system,
and the tender care with which the Gov
eminent provides for its musings. Any
office holder, choosing to retire after hay-
ing served six months, receives two
thirds of his salary for the rest OF his
life. Even if his Office is abolished as I'M
necessary, his consolation is the same. The
list of these public benefciaries includes every
grade, from earls and viscounts to messengers
IN o Jail. Sturdy John Bull in any rank ap-
pears equally ready to become pauper pro-
vided Government is the alms-giver Ameri-
cans who are inclined to grlmble at the sala-
ries paid TO the President or Cabinet should
take few facts from these estimates as an
antidote. A door in the Chancery Court being
closed eighteen years ago, its keeper has re-
ceived since then $4,000 for not keeping it.
A clerk who was dismissed as supernumerary
thirty years ago from the same court has
since been paid SGSs,OO0 the pension to be
continued seven years after his decease 10 his
heirs. But he does nit die-why should he
Good Americans, when they die, will no
longer be sent to Paris but to England on a
retired list. The present Lord Brougham,
retiring on a pension as Master in Ordinary,
by the simple expedient of entering his name
twice on the list, receives not two-thlrds, but
the whole of his salary. Thus, even the re-
fined gold of pension may be reglded by
little iudicous shrewdness 1t is not necessary,
either. that the pensoner should ever have
held the Office for whose loss he is paid. Ger
tain influential persOnages are accustomed to
make provision for their children at birth by
entering them, male and female, on the list OF
civil servants. One of these, whose babies
appeared so frequently as to exhaust the pa
thence of his colleagues, was forced to pro-
vide for the last in small way, and entered
the infant, scarce week old, as "super-
"arnuated postman." The pOstman is but
LATELY dead, having drawn his subsidy for
eighty years.
These are Jokes TO us, but death, or the sure
signs of it, in any system of government to
which they belong Not English oak nor
English loyalty will protect her ship of state
against barnacles such as these.
Yet one of our Washington functiOnaries,
entering upon the discharge Of his duties, has
Just discovered that his Bureau contains many
clerks who are guilty of worthlessness, to the
prejudice of Good Order and Civil Service
discipline" The astonished Commissioner,
possibly needless alike of influential connec-
tons" and promised reform in the Civil
Service, has begun to eliminate the objection
able persons 1t is just possible that the Pen
sion Bureau is not the only one in such I'M
happy plight. -