Lord Frederick Cavendish delivered on Tuesday a useful attack on
legal sinecures, pointing out how many of the officers of the Courts of Law have either little or nothing to do, or else receive very much greater sums for a year of 190 working days than other Civil servants receive for a year of .310 working days. In other words, the clerks in the legal establishments generally work only two-thirds of the time of the clerks in the Civil Service. Further, there are some genuine sinecures, and the Masters in Lunacy are still paid travelling expenses at the old posting rate of eighteen-pence a mile. In answer to Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Government expressed the strongest desire to get rid of the sinecure offices, but said it could not do so without an Act of Parliament, and it had not been possible yet to bring in an Act of Parliament. As to the Masters in Lunacy, and their old posting rates of travelling ex- penses, the Treasury was bound to pay them, they having been appointed on the understanding that their travelling expenses should be allowed. However, Lord F. Cavendish moved the reduc- tion of the vote by £500,—computed to be the equivalent of the extra travelling expenses,—but was beaten by a majority of 57 (177 to 120), and the vote was agreed to. The Government evidently entertain a secret tenderness for these waifs and strays of unearned emoluments, though they are virtuously stern in their abstract language.
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