New-York tribune., 1874-06-01
HUMPTY DUMPTY IN THE TREASURY.

III answer 10 WIldJ may Dc lttiiiy uOS'i'po'
as universal demand for change OF some
sort in the Treasury Department and the adj
ADMINISTRATION of the finances, two things nave
so far been done or attempted. Miss Dawes
was discharged from her employment III the
Department on suspicion of being relation
of the Chairman of the Ways and Means Com
mittee, and afterwards reappointed when she
had satisfied Mr.. Assistant Secretary Sawyer
that she was in no way related and not even
acquainted with the Massachusetts repre-
sentative; and Mr.. Solicitor Banfield
has been requested to resign These are not
great changes, to be sure; there's nothing OF
q revolutionary character about them, but
they are certainly better than nothing for
they indicate life. When Mr. Mulhaly re-
sponded to the inquiry for !"s-cream from
rural wayfarer, ave have no ice-cream just
"now, but here's very nice lot OF long clans
Z" that have Just come in,n he did not of
course meet his customers wants, but there
was a certain tone of business enterprise in
the answer that could not fail to please
the wayfarer and give satisfaction to
the general public. 1t is so much better to
do something, even if it is inadequate. When
Humpty Dumpty as policeman rushes away
from a ll-grOwn fight between able-bodied
men to seize and carry off in triumph to the
station-house a fiye-year-old boy playing mar
bes on the sidewalk, it is not nearly so bad
as if he stood by and did nothing. If he did
nothing, public indignation would be reused;
doing what he does, he succeeds in amusing
the public with the inadequacy of his concep-
ton of duty.
The Treasury Department, for two years
now, has furnished more entertainment for the
people than Mr. Barnum could in five years
with twenty HippOdromes. There never was
anything in sacred or profane history half so
funny as Mr.. Richardson's attempt to resume
specie payment in sums OF five dollars or less
in silver. The most ridiculous Administration
the country has ever experienced has offered
nothing so thoroughly and densely ridiculous
as the cross examination by Treasury
clerk of gentleman who presented a
check and wanted five dollars in specie
on it, the clerk suspecting that he had pre-
sented one check before on the same day
and received his five dollars in silver on it.
Mr.. Assistant Secretary Sawyer came very
near bearing off the palm from even that ex-
hbitiOn the other day, when, after informing
the Committee of Ways and Means, and Con-
gress and the world at large, that people who
are worthy to unloose the shOe-latchets
of the Treasury Department are much
more difficult to find than hens
teeth, he rushed to the Department and
discharged Miss Lucy c. Dawes On suspicion
of being relation of the Ways and Means
Chairman, and restored her Immediately upon
her establishing her innocence. The boy who
reyenged himself by making mouths at his
antagonists sister has answered the purposes
of illustration in literature for several gener-
ations, and we have become quite attached to
him. We bid adieu to him with regret, but he
must disappear. Mr.. Sawyer has pushed him from
his eminence and mounted to his place. From
this time forward Mr.. Sawyer is entitled to be
considered condensed figure of speech-the
embodiment and personificatiOn of phenome-
nal quality of the human mind. He enters
unchallenged upon permanent position in
literature, as much superior to place on the
paper ten-cent piece rs the paper ten-cent
piece is superior to the Old-fashi0ned, cumber
some dime.
And now Mr.. Banfeld, the Solicitor of the
Treasury, has been invited to resign. This, in
response to the demand which soon President
Grant himself must concede to be universal
for change in the Department. Mr.. Rich
ardsOn has been so conspicuous failure as
Minister of Finance that We have yet to hear
of a respectable newspaper of his own party
that has not asked for his removal !;
so miserably incompetent and weak that
but one member of COngress-Mr. Kel-
logg OF Connecticut has ventured to
defend him, and that was a defense of his
integrity at the expense of his ability, the
most significant comment upon it being the
fact that Mr.. KellOggs personal organs at
home, which praise unQuestioningly whatever
he does, found nothing to admire in it except
the courage exhibited i'll standing up alone for