The morning call., 1894-03-24
Sale of the Jas. III. Walker Co..
Bankrupt Stock begins Mon
day Morning.
THE REASON WHY.
Sudden Removal of Custom-House
Officials.

Officials.
To the surprise of every one, except the
few who knew the reason why, Collector
Wise yesterday removed 5. Fl. Hunt as
assistant s.orekeeper. and George A. War
rem. foreman of the laborers. who have
for several years been practically in
charge of the big warehouse known as the
Appraisers store. located in the Federal
building on Washington street. The only
reason given for the removals BY Collector
Wise was that he felt that the service
would be benefited by change. In view
OF the fact that both men removed are
civil service appointees and that recently
Collector Wise was ompelled to reinstate
several civil service men removed for
political reasons only. it WAS surmised
that the discharge of Hunt and Warren
from their positions was due to something
else than a desire to provide places for
Democrats.
1t took lot Of work to get at the true
cause of the removals, but it as at last
found For several months past mer-
chants have been constantly complaining
of small losses from cases of goods while
in the custody of the Government. Cases
of goods in unloading from ships and being
handled on the dock and drays often
reach The Government stoTehOuse with a
board broken off or loosened and are
always marked as received in bad or
der In nearly every case the ''bad
order" packages lost some of their con-
tents before being delivered to their own
ers. The loss was never very much on
any package, but on many packages the
aggregate was considerable, and the Gov
erDment has had to pay for the stolen
goods.
MIR. Hunt and MI Warren have been
warned time and again to keep a sharp
lookout and see that the laborers tampered
with none of the broken cases. and a watch
was put on the whole force 10 try to catch
the guilty parties.
Whether the watch succeeded In locating
the guilty men or not is not known, but
certain It is that lot OF lisle-thread stock
ipgs and some other goods stolen from
damaged cases were found on Monday last
secreted In room in the warehouse where
they must have been put by some Govern
ment smploye.
No charge Of stealing the goods is made
against Hunt or Warren, and, in fact.
there is no doubi but that both of the
men are innocent of any participation or
knowledge of the thefts, but some of the
force under their control and over whom
they have had charge have been plfering
from the broken cases and doing it right
along.
Collector Wise in holding the heads of
the two departments respon sible for not
watching their men better has not over
looked the laborers, and it is stated au.
thoritatively that there will be half dozen
or more laborers lose their positions within
/. day or two, some of whom are stanch
Democrats.
LiIburn B. Anderson, late assistant
weigher, takes Hunts place. and William
Simpson takes Warren's place. the latter
on probation, under civil service rules. for
six months.
Edward T. Murphy is promoted to the
place vacated by Anderson and Benjamin
L. Harrison takes Murphy's place.
The removals among the laborers, 1T
made, will open up places for few Of the
hungry horde of applicants who have been
making Collector Wise's life burden for
weeks.