CHICKEN HAZARD IN THE WAR OFFICE. T HE game of chicken
hazard has probably many attractions of which we are not competent to speak. It has at least one obvious to the meanest capacity, which is, that of all games of chance it offers the greatest amount of excitement for the smallest amount of intellectual or physical exertion. We do not take upon ourselves to aver that this peculiarity of the game in question is the cause of its reputed popularity amongst the younger branches of the noble profession of arms, we do not even state of our own knowledge that it is popular amongst them. If it be so, however, we cannot but admire the self-denying ordinance which has banished dice from the Army and Navy Club. We can fancy the thought of corporate respectability which such a restraint must bring home to him compensating the British subaltern on leave in London for his forced abstinence from the fascinating pastime of "shak- ing the elbow" in his favourite haunt in Pall Mall. It must, however, we are free to admit, be a severe trial to his virtue to see the game, forbidden to him in the club to which he re- sorts to spend a part of his often well-earned leisure, carried on across the way openly and in broad daylight, by men of his own age and rank, not in their leisure hours, but during those the use of which the nation has purchased by salaries paid quarterly, in the fond belief that the recipients are en- gaged somehow upon the business of our national defences. Such a sight was we believe, actually visible from the win- dows of the Rag till within the last fortnight. In any case, whether visible or not to our supposed subaltern, there was the fact until some fortnight ago. The clerks of a large department of the War Office were in the habit of playing hazard to while away the time between the hours of 10 and 5. This was done, not behind the backs or without the knowledge of the first and second-class clerks who had charge of the department in question, but with their sanction and active concurrence. They themselves being men of middle age, who had spent the better part of their lives in the office, and had risen to positions of high trust, appear to have encouraged and joined actively in the game. It is even said that the dice used in the education of the junior clerks as public servants were loaded. This, however, has been officially denied, and seems to us in any case a gilding of refined gold.
The simple story, as it stands admitted on all hands, is quite enough, without asserting that the principal culprits were thieves as well as gamblers.
This is the scandal which has cropped up since our last issue in the great department which deals with the enormous sums voted yearly for our military expenditure. The occur rence is certainly suggestive of much thought to the British taxpayer. Luckily for him the case has been met in the right spirit by the present Secretary for War. The two heads of the department have been summarily dismissed, a punish- ment we believe which has been considered severe in official circles, but which will be received by every honest Englishman outside of those circles with emphatic ap- proval. For this matter is one which touches us all nearly. An appointment as clerk in one of the great public offices has been always considered a prize in the lottery of English life. Of late years, since the principle of competition for such places has been more or less recognized, there has been a large supply of candidates from our public schools and universities; and, taking the average chances of success in life amongst us, this is not to be wondered at. A clerkship in a Government office is a provision for life. The pay, though not large, is immediate and certain, and far higher than the same class of young men would earn at any of the liberal professions. The pay, however, is perhaps the least of the attractions of the position. It involves light work, a certain and steady rise, regular vacations, and, in most cases,—wherever the youngster is presentable,—an opening in society such as no other pro- fession affords. John Bull, in short, offers terms of the most liberal kind to those who are set apart to do his official busi- ness and we should be sorry to see it otherwise. It would be a disgrace to the richest and freest country in the world to pay shabbily or to over-work official servants, and we have of late acted as a nation on the principle that honest work is only to be had for honest pay. Here at any rate officials have no excuse for taking bribes or pilfering.
We . wish we could add that John Bull has managed to get his money's worth. Instead of this he has had a notoriously bad bargain in his Government office clerks. The diligence of these young gentlemen in lunching, reading the papers, keeping gentlemanly hours, and frequentinc,° good society, has indeed acquired a wide-spread notoriety ; but as for the work of the nation which has been entrusted to them, that can probably take care of itself. This has been the belief of the young official, so far as he has troubled himself to think at all about so disagreeable and ungentlemanly a subject as his work. Of course there are honourable exceptions ; men who work as hard and conscientiously for the public in the Foreign Office, the War Office, or the Treasury, as they would have done for any private employer, but the rule has been as we say, and the public has been for some time past disagree- ably conscious of the fact. There has been a general feeling that something ought to be done—that it was really time that twice as many cats as there were mice for should not be kept at the national expense—but, who was to bell the cats ? Pro- bably every Secretary of State and Parliamentary Under- Secretary who has come into office in this generation has had good intentions in this direction, but the atmosphere of the offices, the press of other and more urgent, if not more- important, business, the natural dislike which every man, must have to making himself unpopular in the place, and amongst the men where his life is mainly spent, has hindered the good work. There has been urgent need in every one of the great offices of men who would bring it home to the- understandings of the clerks that their places are not sine- cures for life, but involve a duty to the public beyond draw- ing salaries and studying the great problem of how not to do. the work. But though the need was sore enough, we should have gone on for another generation or so grumbling and let- ting matters slip on in the old groove, but for some such dis- closure as has been happily made in the War Office. Scandal- ous and disgraceful as the story is, we are glad that it has- come out, scarcely sorry that it has happened, for now we see some hope of getting a reform seriously set about. In any case the frequenters of the Army and Navy will be rid of their just grievance, and will no longer be tantalized by the- spectacle of hazard going on under their very eyes in which they cannot join.
We hear that an application is to be made by influential persons for some remission of the full penalty, on the ground of the long services of the dismissed persons. We are at a loss whether to attribute such a move to transcendent impu- dence or only to crass stupidity. Long services employed in corrupting young clerks! lengthened drawing of salaries paid out of the pockets of the struggling taxpayer for plundering. and demoralizing boys placed under them to learn how to serve the nation ! Given long services of this kind, at what figure- shall we put the "surrender value" of them P We will under- take to say that there are few convicts employed under the eye of armed warders on hard labour in any one of our pri- sons who have deserved so ill of England as these two gentle- men. Fortunately the minister who has had the courage to dismiss them summarily is not the kind of man to be taken in by any such flimsy trash as this. The nation has every reason to be grateful to Lord de Grey for what he has done in this matter, and we venture to prophesy will not forget this good deed.
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