GOVERNMENT PACKETS: A LITTLE " JOB: CONSIDERING the great variety of
ways in which a Minister eel help his friends and thwart his opponents, it does not appear sin. prising that every Government has its stanch adherents assung the middle classes, as well as among those who aim at the hi her offices and better things in the gift of the "powers that be." 'The
actual recipients are few compared with the multitude of expect. ants; but the former are numerous ; and it is only every now sad then that disclosures are made of the petty advantages and palls, spites which flow from Ministerial bureaus. Specimens of both
kinds of interference are given in a letter by Mr. FRASER, publisher of the Tory magazine, to the Morning Post of yesterday. If the
facts are as Mr. FRASER relates them, they are disgraceful, hut, we suspect, not at all uncommon. This is Mr. FRASER S Mate. men t-
" About a month since, I received directions from the Honourable Anise Baring to transmit to him regularly at Madeira, (at which place he is staying for the benefit of his health. ) the Quarterly Review, iny own magazine, and Blackwood's, as soon as possible after their publication. Now my agent at P. mouth had apprized me, on the 14th of last month, ' That by a recent order from the Admiralty, the packets are prohibited carrying parcels of any de. scription, unless the parties sending them certify that they do not contain ma. chandise, letters, or any thing liable to postage.' He adds, You had been, therefore, make application to the Lords of the Admiralty for leave, stating these particulars.'
Mr. FRASER wrote to the Admiralty, asking permission to send by the Falmouth packet a parcel, nine inches by five, weighing
about a pound, and containing books, no letters. Mr. BARROS writes in reply, that " my Lords can give no such order." Never. theless, Mr. FRASER declares that another bookseller had nada. culty in procuring freight for a much heavier package- " Mr. Hookham, the bookseller of Bond Street, adroit the same time rt. quested leave to ship for the Brazils, on board the same packet, a case of book,
of abont one hundredweight ; in reply to which application he received, us matter of course, instant permission. In fact, I am assured by those who us likely to be well informed, that there has been no instance, until my unlucky application, of a refusal of any such request. But if this is the beginnings new system, by which the use of a public convenience like the packets is tote confined to a particular party, then surely it would be but right that that spa. tern should be publicly announced and explained."
This is a little job, but a very dirty one; and it deserves expo• sure, as the best way of preventing a repetition.
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