The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1885-01-07
GOVERNMENT CLERKS,
Clunec Mt the People Who Have Eth.
pioymcnt in the Departments,


Each day ut twelve o'clock the beauty
and brains of the government offices drop
all work and issue forth from their hundreds
OF rooms into the broad, marble halls. Some
walk with locked arms in search of fresh dir,
which they do not find. Some shoot, like
sky-rockets, for the nearest street door, and
others hurry to the lunch table. while the
small salaried subordinates nibble cold
sandwich from napkin in their own rooms.
Nothing is put OF quite so high premium
In the departments and made an attraction
OF simply by forbidding it as Irritation.
Every clerk knows full we'll that detectives
and spoilers" both male and female, are
abroad, seeking whom they may deyour,"
and there is probably no place where flirta.
ton is accomplished in briefcr period of
time or enjoyed with more keen relish.
The lonely widow and the blooming maid
are alike adopts at consuming twenty five
cent lunch and slaughtering mans heart,
oil in ten minutes, with ono eye on the
clock and the other on the "spotters ]"
There is considerable beauty among the
women IN the departments, but the greater
percentage are sad-eyed widows, whose
faces tell of ruined hopes, and prematurely
faded girls, whose listless attitudes and
spiritless expressions betoken i'll health,
which is the natural outgrowth of constant
Imprisonment in foul air. The government
departments have been called " the old
maids heaven and the widows paradise. -
But this is misnomer, as-with q large
experience among them-I never met bu,
one woman who admitted that she liked de-
partment life. She was partially insane
The confinement, bad air, sewer gas and
monotony become terrible to both men and
women and they are universally morbid and
sick. Many clerk awakes in the morning
with thrill of horror. The clock 1t is
in fit ! The alarm is going off He grabs
the small fiend and smothers its terrible cry
beneath the pillows for fear of arousine the
house. Then he wonders why he was ever
born and then he listlessly crawls forth tc
begin another day which will be precisely
like the last thousand and one days and just
Of piece with all the days which are te
come unless he dies or the democrats be.
head him.
Most of the clerks are away from home
and friends, in strange city, rooming in
one house, dining in another or at q restau-
rant, and making friends among the only
| class that they meet, which are office people,
and the existence of an ever threatening
political axe, which will surely descend
| some day and take off their back hair, is
not calculated to increase their happiness.
! 1t is distressing to watch the detected,
crushed and sour looking creatures in panta.
looms who file in like prisoners every morn.
ing through the government Office DOORS
When well fed hearty, breezy looking
individual, with fire in his ewes and an air
of independence, sails in, we know that he
either travels for the government on good
| salary, is head of department or bureau
where he is his own master, or that Office
life is but temporary means of support
while he is preparing himself for some pro.
fession. There are plenty of old fossils.
Half of tho time they spend reading the
| paper with their heels in the air, or pray
ing to be delivered from temptation,
but from the democrats. They have other
prayers also, and they are to the effect that
some one-any one-in authority may die
and give the departments q holiday.