The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-20
PAID FOR DOING NOTHING.
.sinecurss the Theory of Vested N Rights Creates in England.

St. James Gazette.
 There are times when even a govern ment department forgets all about red tape and becomes a mere human thing. and when even the treasury filings eceno- my to the winds and becomes a soul of generosity. When. in the reconstruc- ton of departments, somebody must go, the man to go. though he loses his work, never loses his salary. Thousands of peo- pie are idle today through the opera ton of new laws or thorough adminis- trative change-out of work. 1t may almost be said, by act of parliament; but the governments out-of-works are paid for doing nothing.
 It Is over a generation since the regis trar general decided to do without an ifl- dexer, but the man who lost the index- ing work is still drawing nearly a hun dred pounds a year. In 1SsS the home offlce found that 1t could dispense with the schoolmaster at Wormwood Scruobs' and the gentleman who had held the or flee up to that time ha sreceived fEl24 6 year since. And when the foreign or flee found in 1886 that it could dispense with a translator, it gave its translator G176 a year not to translate. There is no limit to the pensioned out-of-works of the government; hundreds of thou sands of pounds are paid away every year to people who do not lift finger to earn 1t. They may have sat on gov ernment stools years and years ago. They may have cooked prison food at Dartmoor; they may have been judges in some little corner of the empire which no longer wants them; they may have been housekeepefrs, laundresses, 5aiiers, laborers, chaplains, governors, clerks, ambassadors. It makes no difference; a generous government compensates them all. .-=,
 There is an old man somewhere who years ago collected toll on Chelsea bridge, and who, because there are no longer tolls to collect, receives a check for 917 a year from the kind-hearted treasury. which could not send him empty away. He has a friend in the field laborer who has received 12 1-2 guinea sa year for a quarter of a century because the off, ficial surveyors of the United Kingdom have nothing more for him to do, and the ex-servants of the crown include a cook at Broadmoor, who costs the tax payers 219 a year. The board Of works gives s300 a year to an out-of-work clerk in the stationary office; the colonial office has been paying an ex-storekeeper at St. Helena a43 a year since 1854, and the foreign office has on its list on out-of- work jailer at yokohama and an out-of- work consul at St. Petersburg who, be- tween them. draw Rl,074 year.
 Just to show that there is no favorit- ism. the Board of Trade gives G7 les year to a dustman for whom 1t could no more dust to carry away, and out of the same cosmopolitan fund comes an ari- nual check for 210 4s Cd to baront who was somehow deprived of certain fines some years ago. The abolition of con- suls, judgships and chaplaincies abroad cost the British taxpayers fe.ooo year, and the management of the national debt Is al,s4S a year more because several years ago the office waos reorganized and seven men were no longer needed. Seven years ago the office was reorganized ana morning that 1t had a superintendent whose services were no longer required. and the superintendent was sent home, after-eighteen years service. with E25o year for old times sake.