The Express. — 1855-03-13 (London, England)

PLACE HUNTING AND PLACE GIVING.  IF any one should seriously wonder at the absurd inefficiency of all our public departments, there is an anecdote told of Sir ROBERT WALPOLE finely illustrative of the system on which appointments in them are bestowed, and which might set the most poneTering astonishment at rest. Lord Somebody—it does not matter who—asked a place for a client of the excellent Minister above named. The place, say Sir ROBERT'S biographers  pleasantly, was The Minister, howivei, did  hot insist on the Peer's absolute support, as he would have been fairly entitled to do ; he merely stipulated that Lord Somebody should abstain from voting with the Opposition on any question which might arise of a nature hostile to the Premier personally. He was  simply required to become indeed a silent accomplice, a tacit approver of any species of imprudence or 1 political error that Sir ROBERT WALPOLE might  We have told the story of Sir ROBERT WALPOLB because it is easier to speak of a bygone notability than a living one : but it is notorious that the same code of honour is practically enforced by the public  men of our own day u that which obtained formerly. Any public man who asks a favour, or even justice, of the Government, places himself at once under a  painful and degrading obligation. It iv so clearly understood that he is prepared to sell himself for a  bribe ander such circumstances, that a sensitive  man would hardly like it to be known he had even called on a minister, lest people should at once conclude that he was trading for his conscience. Between the individual who asks and the Minister who gives there is usually an implied bargain, as disgraceful as that which Mr. CHARLES MATHEws supposed to exist between the Press and the Theatres, and which the Press so indignantly repudiated. Every appointment which appears in the Gazette at out of it, is the price of some man's disgrace; and the wonder is, therefore, that there should be ss many honed and able men in the public service as there are, not that we should have so few. Indeed, it is perfectly incomprehensible how pen eons of repute, upon whose names there rests, no other stain, can tamely bear so foul a blot as that which sullies them in this unworthy traffic. Our reels and Parliament-men gave up the abuse at franking letters without condescending to a struggle about it : why then do they juggle with us lased this more notable scandal of patronage? Under the present system there is no rising in our civil or military service without votes or toadyism. If you have the first, or can degrade your manhood byl practising the last, you have a good chance of success : Iburt marry a OBEY or an ELLIOTT, or be their led captain, or lend them money, and your chance becomes a certainty ; for without doubt needy and dishonest men still coatinne to sell indirectly, indeed, usually, but still to sell—the appointments in their gift for gold. Only last week an individual, dating from the respectable neighbourhood of St. James's-square, where people are geaerally supposed to guess shrewdly at the ways of the world, unblushingly offered 401. for a commissionin the militia. Not long ago a man, who afterwards turned out a murderer, got his wife to ask her former mistress (a court lady) to obtain him an appointment in the Customs, and she did her best to get it for him. An insolvent public man we all knew obtained a large sum of money oa his personal security on condition that he should use his influence to procure the lender a place. A noble lord whose father was member of a defunct cabinet sold government contracts to worthless people; was cheated, made a seise about it, and was found out. Another, ander precisely the same circumstances—that is, his father was member of a late Government—had also a good business in the sale of small places. At last, however, he was obliged to retire from the trade in consequence of one of those unforeseen events which so often frustrate the expectations of ingenious men. He had demanded 6001. as the price of some petty post or other. The place-hunter, a small tradesman, was perfectly ready to pay the sum, but neither party would trust the other. At last it was agreed that a 6001. note should be cut in half, and divided between them, having been thee rendered apparently Voles to either till the contract should be duly performed. The place-hunter also agreed tollaY a Per ctlitage to Captain Bwrit, a half-pay officer, who liT•d, chitty at Polo's Coffee-houool ad who had,