New-York tribune., 1873-02-14
TESTING THE WAR-CLERRS.

We have now official information of the
vast extent of knowledge which is expected
of clerk in the War Department. The
House of Representatives, impelled, doubtless,
by laudable curiosity sent to the Secretary
of War for "a copy of all questions pro-
pounded by the examiners to the candidates
" for appointments and promotions to clerk
ships" and the belligerent Belknap has
promptly responded. An inquisitiye public
the information having been printed-may
now know what a war-clerk is expected to
know. We have the questions which were
used at the examination of applicants for
First Glass Clerkships, Jan. "a, 1873; and
from these we deduce:
That First Class fellow must he able to
spell wagon with two "g's," if he would
shine in the War Department, and must be in
no danger of spelling consummation" with
one an" since mistake upon this point,
should we happen to be engaged in actual
hostilities, might be fatal to the success of
our arms. The First Class fellow must also
know that "Col" is the proper abbreviaton
for Colonel or he might be guilty of gross
disrespect in addressing letter to his superior
officer of that grade; and he must also COM
prehend that A. d. stands for Ammo DOmin
and "bushn for bushel. The poor harassed
badgered, and fast becoming desperate candi-
date for a First Class Clerkship was also re-
quired properly to capitalize and punctuate
the following Dephic sentence:
Office Of chief quartermaster fort leayenwOrth kansas
november 20 1872 by direction OF the chief quarermaster
military division OF the missouri the advertisement OF
this Office dated november 1872 inviting proposals
transportation OF military indian and government sup
plies fort sill indian territory and forts richardson
aud griffin for the year ending december 81 1873
hereby withdrawn the service will be advertised
for by lieutenant colonel hollabrd chief quartermas
ter department OF texas at antonio texas stewart
van Welt assistant quartermaster general usa chief
Quarterma ster department of the missouri
But even after this his struggles and suffer
ings were not over. Without Civ ing him
chance TO recover himself probably without
the cheap but graceful kindness of putting a
cup of cold water to his lips, the stern iuquis-
itor Immediately ordered the patient to
Divide -Sevenths of FiveEigbths by
"FOur-Sevenths of Fourteen -Sixteenths, and
"give the result in vulgar and decimal frac-
tions.r Rising, we will hope, successfully
from superhuman effort to grapple with this,
the applicant was required to guess the fol-
lowing conundrum: "What is the value of
"$1 OF currency when gold is 13i per cent pre-
"mum ~ and if this didn't finish him, to do
the following pretty sum:
" Make out account, IN the name OF Richard Robin.
son. against the United States for the following 900
pounds OF hay at 4 so per tun $500 pounds oats at
62i cents per bushe (32 pounds 2i7 cords feet wood
at Is per cord ga tuns coal, at 81 90 per un 7Oss6
feet lumber at 5 per 900 475 qures paper at 325
per ream transporting Stss5 pounds freight 10 Fort
Ifrt1 fah TaVrfR Ha No
miles. at 81 ~ por 100 pounds per 100 miles"
We may suppose that after this the gasnin9