THE WAY THEY MAKE GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 666, 3 September 1864, Page 19

THE WAY THEY MAKE GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS.

(From the Standnrd, 18th June.)

It is possible that the voluminous style of Mr Ferrand's oratory may indispose ' certain classes of the public from appreciating the most delicious anecdote of Whig patronage which the oldest inhabitant of official premises can remember. This is the history of Mr John Simmons, jun. We extricate his case from the wonderful med'ey of corruption painted, like the representation of a masque, by the indomitable, vivid, and indefatigable member for Devendort. The whole story is shameful ; but this particular bit of official romance is positively unique. It reads like the tale, so favoured by Oriental romancists. of the slipper-bearer who became Grand Vizier, of the Bagdad barber who married a daughter of the King, of the j Arab warrior who, possessing a horse, had a bag of beans, rose to the Caliphate of Western Asia. There has been magic in the process, if Mr Ferrand has not been misinformed. That, however is not a supposition which will suggest itself to many minds. The statement of Thursday night was not contradicted on any single point from the Treasury bench. The annal3 of Mr John Simons, junior, were recited to the House of Commons by Mr Ferraud. If Mr Ferrand was inaccurate, if he exaggerated, if there was any valid defence, why was not Mr Ferrand contradicted? Parliament was told by Ministers that they knew nothing about the individual whom they had appointed to a highly responsible situation, but that it was ungenerous to rake up what, in common slang, would be called his antecedents. We are not, let us premise, going to asperse Mr John Simons, junior ; we rather regard him as an injured man. Government refused to undertake hu vindication. He is left by his own patrons under a shadow. But a mystery envelopes the narrative of his extraordinary promotion. Why is he a charity inspector? What, before he became a charity inspector, had he been ? We beg, with Mr Farrand, to explain what being a charity inspector signifies. This official is clothed with judicial powers. He is privileged to hold a court in any district of England or Wales. lie can summon a peer or a member of the Commons to take an oath ; he can direct a prosecution for perjury, and he can commit for contempt. But can he write ? Mr Ferrand say?, " Indifferently." Can he spell? Mr Ferrand says, " No." We are not, upon a matter sy grave that it almost involves a scandal, accepting the ipse dixit of the member for Devonport. Possibly he overdrew his portrait of the charity inspector, who, as Mr Lowe explained, " had not been brought up to anything," But why, even taking his interest into consideration, has inquiry been < denied ? Why was there no refutation of Mr Mr Ferrand's explicit and circumstantial charge? The card of Mr John Simons, jun., was produced —a black, dirty, soddened patch of pasteboard, bearing the superscription, " John Simons, Jan., coal dealer, Bridge Wharf, Regent's Canal, llampstead road ?" Are the two Dromios one ? Is the identity established ? Was this the man who actually fled from his creditors in 1853, and who pbaded the Statute of Limitations when he returned? Is this the man who, to avoid beggary, became a hired laborer in Australia, and after being nominated to an office at home requiring education and intelligence, had to undergo eight weeks of elementary tuition before he dared to face his Whig employers ? Far be it from mto reply in affirmative. We hesitate to think the assertion credible. We imagine that Mr Ferrand may have been misinformed. $ut these details have been declUred as facts before the Legislature, and the Cabinet is not ready either with an answer or with an investigation. " The House will see, 1 ' remarked Mr Ferrand, " that the gentleman's card is as black as a coal, and as dirty as a rotten potatoe — which might have been on a grocer's floor for a twelvemonth, or nailed to a costermonger's barrow. Infallibly, Ministerial sycophants outside the House will take their cue from Ministerial sycophants inside, and indulge in generous clap-traps against taunting a successful man with his humble origin. This, however, is a question not of social rank, but of official qualifications and of dishonest favoritism. Why was the coal- dealer selected ? What occult influence recalled him from meanial toil in * Australia ? Why was he to have been chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, with L2OOO a year, had the reigning funcionary died ? There is a secret lying somewhew beneath the published chapters of the story. It is due to Mr John Simons, junior, himself, that, if his career has been misrepresented in the House of Commons, he should be afforded an opportu- 1 nity for his own vindication. We do not ask what he was at Bridge Wharf, Regent's canal, Hampstead road. That is his own affair. If ha be an example of " self-help" upon legitimate principles, so much the

better for him. But he has been seriously accused. Mr Ferrand affirms that he crossed the seas to evade his pecuniary liabilities. Mr Ferrand adds that, upon being presented with a valuable public appointment, he pleaded the ptatute of Limitations to sponge off his debts. Mr Ferrand tells us that afterwards he was presented at Court by the Prime Minister himself. Mr Ferrand goes on to declare that the charity inspector, with all his responsibility and power, writes badiy and can hardly spell. Is this the truth or a slander? Is it a justifiable attack, or the charges unfounded ? We should have thought that Mr Simons, patronised as he has been by Ministers, would have found an official champion. But no, the accusation rests where Mr Ferrand left it. Of all the scandals arising from Whig patronage of recent years, this is almost calculated to pain the public conscience, and to create distrust among public functionaries. (Spectator.) ! Mr Ferrand made on Friday a speech I characteristically calumnious against the Board of Charitable Trusts. He spared the Commissionrs, but thought mos of the remaining employes were either snobs, or fraudulent persons, or men appointed in defiance of Parliament, or, what was worse than all, Whigs. He was particularly severe on Mr Simon, who, being a coal and potato salesman in the Hampsteadroad, was appointed inspector with a salary of LBOO a year, according to Mr Ferrand, from corrupt motive?. There seems, so far as one can judge from the tone ol her Majesty's Government, to have been some- j thing of a job in this nomination, but so completely is Mr Ferrand distrusted in the House, that his application for an inquiry was rejected by ]16 to 40, members remembering that twenty years ago the House had formally voted that charges brought by Mr Ferrand against Sir James Graham and Sir James Weir Hogg were " unfounded and calumnious."

The Royal Mint.— The marvellous progress which has bean made in mechanical science in this country during the last half century is nowhere more practically demonstrated than in the new weighing room of the Royal Mint. That handsomely appointed apartment of the moneymaking establishment contains twelve small machines, each one the counterpart of its neighbour, and which for delicacy of finish and beauty of minute constructive detail may be said to equal, if not excel, any mechanical apparatus owing its existence to the conception and the fingers of man. They appear, indeed, when in motion, to be giited with intelligence, and they certainly constitute the nearest approach to thinking machines that have as yet been contrived. The task of the automatic weighing machines oftlje Mint is, to receive eai-h individual planehet, or di3c of the precious metal produced by the laminating mills and cutting-out presses, and to answer the question as to whether or not these planchets are of Ihe legal weight, which qualifies them for conversion into current coins of the realm. This highly important duty the automatons perform i with a degree of speed, regularity, and accuracy | impossible of achievement by direct human 1 aueney. No matter what the extent of skill, tare, j and aptitude the manipulator might brin? to the work, hp could not, as has been over and over again proved, weigh planchets of gold or silver to the extreme nicety which the Mint machines have been made to reach. Through their media the infallible and beautiful law of gravitation is enlisted into the service of her Majesty's coiners, and the results obtained thereby are as unfailingly constant and exact as is the action of that law. Before proceeding to describe more closely the principle and -the peculiarities of construction of the automatic balances, it may not be improper to offer a few remarks upon the great importance to the Mint and to the community at large, of the accurate weighing, or " sizing," as the ancient term stands, of pieces of gold or silver intended for transformation into the circulating medium. From the very earliest period in ihe annals of minting, ! its consequence and v.ilue have been recognized. Even before coins were in use at all in the British islands, and when slips or cuttings of the precious metals represented money, the sizing of those slips was necessarily attended to, and that with as much care and exactitude as the rude appliances •f the time admitted. It was usual at that remote era — which was immediately preceded by the age of barter— for the inhabitants of Britain to goto market, or out shopping, laden with sufficient metal for effecting their intended purchases, and to carry with them instruments for dividing, and scales and weights for weighing it. This primitive process was found to be inconvenient, uncertain, and very troublesome, and soon the expedient was resorted to of having pieces of metal cut and weighed before going out marketing. These clippings were at once tlie prototypes of, and the substitutes for, coins. At length, and owing to frauds practised by buyers and sellers, both in respect of the weighing, and the debasement of the metallic symbols, it became necessary to interpose the authority of the law, and thus to regulate and systematise the rude and unshapely currency. Then appeared stamps or impressions, emblems of that authority, r>nd guarantees of the weight and fineness of the metallic dumps upon which they were imprinted. To these marks of genuineness were subsequently added the names of tho authorised moneyers by whom they were struck or stamped. The next step in the march of improvement was to decorftte~as well as the artists of the day^ could accomplish the operation— the pieces of metal with representations of the monarch, prince, or prelate, under whose sanction they were issued. Dates, legends, and inscriptions followed in process 01 time, but, as has been shown, the accurate sizing or weighing of the metals was always a subject of grave consideration.—" Intellectual Observer."

Women.— Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the famous wit and beauty, made the most sarcastic observation that was ever published about her own sex. "It goes far," said my lady, "to reconcile me to being a woman when I reflect that I am thus ia no danger of marrying one."