The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-06-07

less risk OF contamination, and some Depart
ments have been more unfortunate in this
respect than others. From time to time in
stances have occurred that have given color to
stories derogatory to the credit of the bureau.
But fortunately such examples are rare, and
the pure should not be classed with the OBJ
jectionable, though many make no distinction
in their condemnation. Speaking from personal
observation, do not hesitate to assert that as
a general thing the lady clerks of the Census
Office are treated with every consideration by
the men in CHARGE especially the chiefs of
bureaus, who in general are courteous to all
and thoughtful for the advancement of the
deserving; and here let me observe that prob
ably no branch of the Government service
has attained so high degree of perfection
in so limited period as this especial branch
OF the Interior Department So perfect is its
system and conscientiously managed its COM
Nplex workings that the average of labor per-
formed, principally by ladies, under female
rivaled and the amount of labor daily ac-
complished almost incredible. A few years
since, before the reins of Government were as
sumed by the present Postmaster General,
there was considerable complaint and dissatis-
faction among the poor women employed in
the Mail Bag Division, which occupied the
entire top story of the old Roller Rink ON G
street, between Sixth and Seventh streets
northeast. The only ventilation procurable
was q few narrow slits of windows
were seldom if ever allowed to be
opened, owing so the cantankerousness Of the
superintendent, an old man bent with years
and enfeebled by disease. This man when
applied to for permission to admit breath Of
fresh air into the heavily polluted atmosphere
OF the over-crowded room, in which were
eighty or ninety women, old and young, would
refuse, and say the air was good enough"
Probably the most popular branch of the
War Department Division of the Government
is the Quartermaster Generals Office, in
which between thirty-fve and forty lady
clerks were last year employed. Like the
Navy Department, the appointments are more
permanent, owing to the fact of there being
less political competition in these two mill
tary and naval branches OF the service than
In the bureaus influenced by political changes.
For this reason there is more careful selection
of clerks and other employees and higher
standard of eligibility required. Few, ii any,
have been the cases on record where the dis
missals have been made for aught but incom-
potency, and the women as well as the male
clerks have enjoyed immunity from the I'M
certainty OF tenure to which those OF most of
the other bureaus are naturally subjected.
Most of these ladies have satisfactorily filed
their positions for many years, and when
vacancy occurs 1t is usually caused by mar
riage or death. | know one lady, widow,
who for upward of twenty years has held a
clerkship undisturbed by political changes.
1t will thus be seen that though much has
been said and much written In connection
with the immortality among the various
branches of the Government service, the truth
when sifted from the mass of gossip which
surrounds 1t is found to be to contradict the
oft-repeated assertions of the complete rot
tenness of the mass, and though evil abounds
in some directions there are hundreds of pure,
good women and honorable men everywhere
to be found among the ranks who bravely and
eheerfully pursue the tenor of their way side
by side among the bread-winners of the great
Government crib, and are none the less true
to themselves and their conscience than the
most carefully shielded child of fortune.
A p. T.