A Hundred Years Ago
THE " SPECTATOR," OCTOBER 2311D, 1530.
FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS.
; THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON, digested under separate Heads, and placed in Parallel Lines, with all intermediate Latin Version, consisting of the Nominative» and First Persons of the Nouns. Verbs, eke. ; the whole forming a series of Exercises on the Rules of Declension and Construction.
GOVERNMENT CLERKS AND OFFICERS.
.several papers, articles have lately appeared which have caused great apprehensions in all those who, like myself, fill subor- dinate situations under Government. Whatever determination may be formed respecting us, we have not the means of opposition. Any measures short of ruin give us cause for thankfulness, as we are well aware that they who grind away our incomes to a bare subsistence, ran, if they please, reduce us to beggary. It is true that great abuses have existed in Government situations, and great abuses do still exist. Remedies for them have from time to time been proposed; but they have occasioned much misery to indi- viduals, without satisfying the public. The abuses exist almost entirely in the higher situations ; and the possessors, being con- nected with powerful families, have always had interest enough to ward off the blow from themselves. To satisfy in some degree the voice of the public, they have been ready at all times to sacrifice the inferior officers. Retrenchment after retrenchment has been boasted of, but the public are scarcely aware how scandalously it has operated. Officers who receive half-a-crown a day, have been reduced in various instances to two shillings ; whilst those who receive four or five hundred a year, have acquired an addition to their Salaries. Instead of reductions being made on a graduated scale, taking away most from those who possessed most, and could best spare it, the very reverse has been the plan pursued • and tlio higher a person's salary was, the less cause had he to apprehend any interference with it. The retrenchments which have been compelled having been always shifted from the powerful to the weak, it happens that at this time there is in some departments no room for farther reduction in the salaries of the suborateofficens without re, uciig them to beggary and driving them to any extremes."
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