The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-02-16

JOHN 2. PRoCTOR.
tenn saved him from much annoyance,
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
81 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 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 its critics
the moro determined is the president to
broaden its scope. So well is this under
stood here that whenever the New York
Sun makes 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 13 general
orders, taking in some 10, 900 who had
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. Everybody 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 a school
teacher from Illinois wanting to teach
Indians who was given a once famous
English book entitled Rejected Adj
dresses, F" with request to write a 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
nam ID. Webster, chief examiner, have |
from time to time laid aside specimen !
papers as curiosities, 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
y Is spelled In no less than 81 differ
ant ways. This seems incredible. but
he clerks have counted the variations
;arerully. The most unique perhaps is
'krookidli, but there are many purely
'honetio spellings by foreign born ap-
'hcants not familiar with the word, who
lined at the sound as represented in
ne letters OF their own languages. The
Examination also brought out the fact
hat In large section of this country
40 90" is pronounced exactly like
ew" in few, in another section as
90" in food and in few places almost
Kactly like the French gu" The lar
est percentage Of errors seems to be in
'ords ending In ance or ence, many get
ng them confused. As TO believe
nd believe" "recieve'' and ode
oto' VI course they abound here as in | ,
4 English writing countries.
Life Is Real.
In the papers used for one year there
as an order, MAKE prose paraphrase
the lines:
Ten me not - mournful numbers
Life Is but an empty dream,
For the soul IS dead that slumbers, ]
And things are not what they seem. i
The result showed marvellous VARIETY {
views or rather guesses at Longfel- q
8 meaning and some notions about e
% and the soul which would have g
rown Dr. McCosh into 'geeminy fit, - 2
Z tine prudent ones merely contented a
with transposing the poets Q
'rds. A colored applicant, after max r
3 several attempts, as shown bv il
atched out sentences and phrases Il
ally wrote this: ''Do not saw life Is u
real. for he who says SO had better Y
IN his eyes, shake himself and find
thereby whether or not he is here or
Many of the answers indicate a m
neral haIiof \