The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-01-12

but soon after made very bitter speech
against it in the house. The speech pre-
sumably made him solid with his Office
seeking constituents. There certainly is
a civil service reform, and as it is now
9 years old and beginning to grow side
whiskers the American people ought to
know more about its parentage, birth,
bringing up and present condition, for
assuredly it has come to stay.
A Question of Distance.
More than that, it is a rapidly grow
ing power. Already does it control one
fourth of all the Offices, and by executive
order it is fast absorbing others, and the
more heated the assaults of it's critics
the more determined is the president to
broaden its scope. So we'll is this under
stood here that whenever the New York
Sun makes a particularly venomous at
tack on him and refers therein to the
system it is expected that Mr.. Cleve
land will at once issue an order taking
in few hundred more employees. In
his present term he has issued Ii general
orders, taking in some 10, 600 who had
been out, and some 3, 600 more are ex-
pected to come in soon.
The critics have had their fun, how
ever, and there has been ample material,
for at the start the examinations were
not arranged by the most practical men
in the world, and many real questions
and many more fictitious ones with lu-
dicrous answers have amused the pub
lie. Every body has heard of the Texan
clerk who to the question, "How far is
it from the earth to the planet Mars at
their conjunction?" answered that he
had no idea, but he knew that Mars was
far enough away not to interfere with
his work in the custom house. He got
the appointment. There was school
teacher from Illinois wanting to teach
Indians who was given a once famous
English book entitled Rejected Adj
dresses, - with request to write short
criticism on it. He wrote that he could
not see why they were rejected, as There
are some really good things in them. -
These, however, are but the light hu-
mors OF a rather serious situation. Two
important facts must first be noted
that the percentage of failures in the
examination has grown much less of late
and that of ludicrous answers still less.
The clerks in the Office of Major Will
liam H Webster, chief examiner, have
from time to time laid aside specimen
papers as 9uTiosities, and some of these l
have been allowed to look over, though
the rules forbid the publication of the
name, number or residence of the appli-
can't. The most astonishing fact in the
pile is that the simple word crooked
ly" is spelled in no less than 81 differ
ent ways. This seems incredible, but
the clerks have counted the variations
carefully. The most unique perhaps is
'tkrookidli, - but there are many purely
| phonetic spellings by foreign born ap-
| plicants not familiar with the word, who
/ aimed at the sound as represented in
the letters of their own languages. The
examination also brought out the fact
that in a large section of this country
the 100 is pronounced exactly like
''ew'' in few, in another section as
100 in food and in a few places almost
exactly like the French Gu. :" The lar
| gest percentage of errors seems to be in
words ending in ance or ence, many get
ting them confused. AS to "believe'
and believe - receive" and 'de-
cieve, " of course they abound here as in
all English writing countries.
Life Is Real
In the papers used for one year there
was an order, MAKE prose paraphrase
of the lines:
Tell me not in mournfu1 numbers
Life is but empty dream,
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
| And things not what they seem.
The result showed marvellous variety
of views or rather guesses at Longfel-
| lows meaning and some notions about
life and the soul which would have
thrown DIR. McCosh into 'geeminy fit, .
but the prudent ones merely contented
themselves with transposing the poet'E
words. A colored applicant, after max
ing several attempts, as shown by
scratched out sentences and phrases
finally wrote this: 'tDo not say life ii
not real, for he who says so had better
open his eyes, shake himself and fine
| out thereby whether OF lot he is here Of