HOW THEY DO THINGS IN THE TREASURY.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10636, 21 April 1900, Page 7

HOW THEY DO THINGS IN THE TREASURY.

An amusing story of the ways of the ] Treasury is told' by Sir Wemyss Reid in "The Nineteenth Century." He says: — "I remember a distinguished public man who has risen high in the service of the State relating to mc a little of his own. On the day on which he first entered a certain Government office as a junior clerk he was the witness of a scene that filled him iwirJh amazement. An elderly gentleman who was seated at another desk in the 6ame room suddenly rose from his seat, dragged his chair to the fireplace, and, seizing the poker, attacked the offending piece of furniture with what seemed to be maniacal fury. When he had broken a leg off the chair Ms passion seemed to be exhausted. He flung the damaged' seat into a corner of the room, and, getting another chair, calmly resumed —is work as though nothing had happened. My friend o_ leaving his work that afternoon ventured, with the hesitation of a novice, to ask another clerk who had been a witness of ! the scene what it meant. 'Is Mr X subject to attacks of this kind?" he asked. 'Mr X ,;,, ,}'■ was the response. 'There was nothihg tlie matter With him. You see, one ol -the casters had come off. his chair, and the Treasury won't replace casters; they will repair.nothing less serious than a broken leg. So he broke one of the legs, and now he will get a caster put on again.' This story is not merely ben trovato—it is absolutely true, and it throws a flood of fight upon Treasury methods and traditions."