Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-03-05
The Alleged Envelope Contract Frauds.
REPLY OF POSTMASTER GENERAL HATToN TO


The Postmaster General on Tuesday transmit
ted To the House his reply to resolution calling
FOR information with regard to alleged great
frauds in the supply of official envelopes dis
covered last summer. He says that the amounts
involved were greatly magnified by the news
paper publications. The actual sums deducted
from the contractors bills were but 50. 92S from
the Plympton company and the Morgan Enve-
lope company, and 1885 from p. p. Kellogg l.
Co. The Postmaster General says there is no
reason to suppose, much less to believe, thatany
officer at the department was guilty of the
slightest act of omission or commission in con-
nection with the supply of the defective enye-
opes under both the contracts involved. 1t does
appear clearly. however, he further says, that
the government agent and inspector at Hart
ford whose duty ii was to supervise the manu-
ficture and issue OF all the envelopes in question:
had either aiied to comprehend his instructions
and the object of his appointment, or that he
had wiliully disregarded them.
Something About Mr.. Gladstone.
From the New York sun.
Mr.. Gladstone is in the seventy-sxth year of
his age. He entered the House of Commons in
1882, and has sat in every session for fifty-three
years. He has been a parliamentary leader for
half a century, standing in the front rank since
1915, when he was colonial secretary in the
ministry OF Sir Robert Peel. He became pre-
mier in 1865, subsequently overthrown by
Disraeli and again to the first place on the
retirement of his great rival.
British prime ministers are often tough old
fellows. The present generation has seen half a
dozen'such besides Gladstone. There was Dis
raeli, whom pOsterity will recognize by that
name long after his title has been forgotten. He
was elected to the Commons in 1887, and be-
came first lord of the treasury in 1868. He fin
ally retired from office in his seNenty-fth year.
Perhaps the most extraordinary specimen of
tenacity of Office and tenacity of life was Lord
Russell. He entered Parliament in 1918, when
he was % years old, and he afterward led in the
House of Commons when Protestant disSenterS
were relieved by the repeal of the test act. and
when the Catholics were emancipatcd. lie
also carried through the reform bill. He was
premier in SAG and again in 1S65-6 when he
threw up the seals in his Seventy-tfth year
though he was an active member OF the House
of Lords till he was nearly 30.
Lord PalmerstOn entered the commons
through rotten borough in 1906. He was first
lord OF the treasury from 1895 to 1865, except
ing few weeks, and died full OF hight at the
head of the ministry just as he reached his
through negro emancipation, was premier in
1852, and again i'll 1888, and again from $50
TO 1865 in middle life he changed from a
whig to q tory, and went out of office when on
the verge of three score and ten. Lord Aberdeen,
a willy. gnarly Scotchman of the Gordon family,
became the head OF a coaitiOn Cabinet in lS53
but resigned in SO at the age of Scventy-Onc,
ton growing out OF the Crimean war.
Thus we see that from Lord RusSells time, In
1916, down to GadstoneS, covering period of
thirty-nine years, old men have generally been
at the head of the English ministry. Wemfght
60 further back and find ii much the same
Lord Melbourne liked to be regarded sort
OF father to Queen Victoria when he was prime
minister, and Earl Grey was Seventy-One when
he left office, and he survived till he was eighty
one. Broughan, his restless and versatile lord
chancellor, was wont to stir up the droWsy
peers till he was nearly ninety. The iron duke,
too had seat in the cabinet after he was an
Octogenarian. and though the hero OF hundred
battles, he died quietly in his bed in his eighty
fourth year. holding tue semi-ciVil, Seml-m1ll-
tary office oflord warden of the Cinique ports.