DOI issue:
January 25, 1868
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16881#0042
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[January 25, 1868.
34
Showing what a wonderful Improvement the Holes in the Railway
Carriages are, particularly during the Holidays.
ALL THE WORLD A CRAB.
There is an operation
On ’Change called Backwardation.
To human civilisation
That word doth well apply;
Alas ! we sadly sigh
In better days, gone by,
The world was onwards speeding;
’Tis now as fast receding.
The news is heavy reading,
And doleful as ’t,is dry.
Whilst rumours fly alarming.
The nations go on arming,
The means each other of harming
Is now their chiefest care.
Bor bloodshed all prepare,
And warn us to beware ;
Though there’s small cause io mention,
In Europe, for dissension,
No biff bone of contention :
They’d soon fight if there were.
America, confounded,
Into a smash self-pounded,
We look upon astounded ;
And here we are at home,
With parsons aping Rome,
Each Ritualist coxcomb;
Strikes, in, and out, of season,
Mob meetings without reason,
And frantic Fenian treason,
From o’er Atlantic foam.
Then business from depression
Is making small progression ;
In general retrocession
Our part we have to bear.
Rut still, as yet, our share,
When cases we compare,
Of troubles and of labours
Is smaller than our neighbours’
On bayonets and sabres
No cost, no lives, who spare.
Centre of Gravity.—A Judge in Court.
A CRY FROM THE CUSTOM HOUSE.
My dear Lord Derby,
As first. Lord of the Treasury and the Premier of England,
you have probably a fair amount of work upon your hands, and it is
probably as much as ever you can do to look into your Punch. How-
ever, taking it for granted yon do not neglect this duty, I wish to ask
you privately what you mean to do for the poor clerks in the Customs,
who have appealed to me to get them an increase of their salaries ?
They tell me that so far back as last March they had the honour to
memorialise your Lordships of the Treasury, with the object of con-
vincing you that they were sadly underpaid ; but then, of course, you
were too busy with reforming the Commons to pay heed to reforming
the poor pay of the Customs. So they repeated their memorial on
the 13th of December, doubtless hoping that your Lordships would,
with seasonable benevolence, have given them a Christmas-box to help
to'pay their Christmas bills. My good friend Sir Thomas Fremantle,
the Chairman of their Board, would doubtless willingly have joined with
me in backing their request had there been any prospect that by doing
so he would have profited him seif. But Sir Thomas has asalaryof£2000 a
year, and I fear could hardly furnish you with grounds for its increase.
With Abyssinia and Ireland and some other things to think of, you
may not find the time to think of helping these poor clerks, although I
make no doubt you would be glad enough to do so. A Conservative
just now is pretty certain to be liberal, and Lancashire well knows you
have a big bump of benevolence. Among their various grievances the
principal are these :—
“ The Customs Department, though one or the most important branches of the
Civil Service, collecting upwards of £22,000,000 aunually, and furnishing commercial
statistics of great value, is the worst paid of the Revenue and other largo Govern-
ment Departments.
“ The examination for admission to the Customs Service is identical with that of
the Inland Revenue ; the members of both departments are drawn from the same
class in society, derive their appointments from the same source, and are engaged
in the performance of duties of a very similar character ; yet the average salary of
clerks in the latter department is forty-two per cent, superior to that of clerks in
the former.”
My good old friend Ser Thomas has, himself, no grounds for
grumbling, for he pockets the same salary as the Chairman who pre-
sides over the Board of Inland Revenue, whose clerks, upon the average,
get £235 a year, while the poor Clerks of the Customs are paid upon
the average £70 per annum less. Why, if the Boards are paid alike,
the clerks’ pay should be different, is a riddle which your Lordship
perhaps will beg their Lordships of the Treasury to solve, and the best
thing they could do would be to say, “ We give it up and then, by
making the pay equal, prevent the question being put to them again.
Another fair cause for a grumble on the part of the poor clerks, who
help to pay into the Treasury some two-and-twenty millions sterling
every year, is that:—
“ While the salaries of clerks in many branches of the Civil Service have of late
years been considerably increasud, those of clerks in the Customs have remained
nearly unchanged, notwithstanding that the educational standard of qualification
has been materially raised, and that the difficulty in obtaining admission into the
service has been greatly increased by competitive examinations.”
Men with a large income, like yon and me, my Lord, of course have
small occasion to trouble our fine minds by thoughts about, the price
of bread, and beef and mutton, and other things which poor folk call
the “necessaries of life.” But a newspaper informs me, in an article
which advocates the cause of the poor clerks, that:—
“ All the necessaries of life have risen from twenty to twenty-five per cent,
within the last seventeen years; but the salaries paid to the officials in the Custom
House are almost exactly as they were seventeen years ago. In some respects the
prospects of the senior clerks are positively worse.”
Surely, then, your Lordship will agree with me in thinking that John
Bull, in common justice, ought to give his Customs’ clerks an increase
of their salaries, to balance the augmented cost of bread and meat.
Honesty in such matters is clearly ihe best policy, for servants whe
are badly paid are rarely zealous in good work. Men who have the
charge of collecting twenty millions every year for Mr. Bull should
not be stinted in their salaries, but encouraged by good pay to do the
best for him they can. Let a liberal per-centage be added to the income
of the poor clerks in the Customs, and, depend on it, the income Mr.
Bull gets from the Customs will also be increased. So well-to-do a
gentleman should really feel ashamed to be a stingy skin-flint in the
payment of his servants ; and, as his best adviser,. I would beg him in
this matter to listen to the voice of justice and of wisdom, as uttered
to your Lordship, by your Lordship’s servant, 335&NC36
[January 25, 1868.
34
Showing what a wonderful Improvement the Holes in the Railway
Carriages are, particularly during the Holidays.
ALL THE WORLD A CRAB.
There is an operation
On ’Change called Backwardation.
To human civilisation
That word doth well apply;
Alas ! we sadly sigh
In better days, gone by,
The world was onwards speeding;
’Tis now as fast receding.
The news is heavy reading,
And doleful as ’t,is dry.
Whilst rumours fly alarming.
The nations go on arming,
The means each other of harming
Is now their chiefest care.
Bor bloodshed all prepare,
And warn us to beware ;
Though there’s small cause io mention,
In Europe, for dissension,
No biff bone of contention :
They’d soon fight if there were.
America, confounded,
Into a smash self-pounded,
We look upon astounded ;
And here we are at home,
With parsons aping Rome,
Each Ritualist coxcomb;
Strikes, in, and out, of season,
Mob meetings without reason,
And frantic Fenian treason,
From o’er Atlantic foam.
Then business from depression
Is making small progression ;
In general retrocession
Our part we have to bear.
Rut still, as yet, our share,
When cases we compare,
Of troubles and of labours
Is smaller than our neighbours’
On bayonets and sabres
No cost, no lives, who spare.
Centre of Gravity.—A Judge in Court.
A CRY FROM THE CUSTOM HOUSE.
My dear Lord Derby,
As first. Lord of the Treasury and the Premier of England,
you have probably a fair amount of work upon your hands, and it is
probably as much as ever you can do to look into your Punch. How-
ever, taking it for granted yon do not neglect this duty, I wish to ask
you privately what you mean to do for the poor clerks in the Customs,
who have appealed to me to get them an increase of their salaries ?
They tell me that so far back as last March they had the honour to
memorialise your Lordships of the Treasury, with the object of con-
vincing you that they were sadly underpaid ; but then, of course, you
were too busy with reforming the Commons to pay heed to reforming
the poor pay of the Customs. So they repeated their memorial on
the 13th of December, doubtless hoping that your Lordships would,
with seasonable benevolence, have given them a Christmas-box to help
to'pay their Christmas bills. My good friend Sir Thomas Fremantle,
the Chairman of their Board, would doubtless willingly have joined with
me in backing their request had there been any prospect that by doing
so he would have profited him seif. But Sir Thomas has asalaryof£2000 a
year, and I fear could hardly furnish you with grounds for its increase.
With Abyssinia and Ireland and some other things to think of, you
may not find the time to think of helping these poor clerks, although I
make no doubt you would be glad enough to do so. A Conservative
just now is pretty certain to be liberal, and Lancashire well knows you
have a big bump of benevolence. Among their various grievances the
principal are these :—
“ The Customs Department, though one or the most important branches of the
Civil Service, collecting upwards of £22,000,000 aunually, and furnishing commercial
statistics of great value, is the worst paid of the Revenue and other largo Govern-
ment Departments.
“ The examination for admission to the Customs Service is identical with that of
the Inland Revenue ; the members of both departments are drawn from the same
class in society, derive their appointments from the same source, and are engaged
in the performance of duties of a very similar character ; yet the average salary of
clerks in the latter department is forty-two per cent, superior to that of clerks in
the former.”
My good old friend Ser Thomas has, himself, no grounds for
grumbling, for he pockets the same salary as the Chairman who pre-
sides over the Board of Inland Revenue, whose clerks, upon the average,
get £235 a year, while the poor Clerks of the Customs are paid upon
the average £70 per annum less. Why, if the Boards are paid alike,
the clerks’ pay should be different, is a riddle which your Lordship
perhaps will beg their Lordships of the Treasury to solve, and the best
thing they could do would be to say, “ We give it up and then, by
making the pay equal, prevent the question being put to them again.
Another fair cause for a grumble on the part of the poor clerks, who
help to pay into the Treasury some two-and-twenty millions sterling
every year, is that:—
“ While the salaries of clerks in many branches of the Civil Service have of late
years been considerably increasud, those of clerks in the Customs have remained
nearly unchanged, notwithstanding that the educational standard of qualification
has been materially raised, and that the difficulty in obtaining admission into the
service has been greatly increased by competitive examinations.”
Men with a large income, like yon and me, my Lord, of course have
small occasion to trouble our fine minds by thoughts about, the price
of bread, and beef and mutton, and other things which poor folk call
the “necessaries of life.” But a newspaper informs me, in an article
which advocates the cause of the poor clerks, that:—
“ All the necessaries of life have risen from twenty to twenty-five per cent,
within the last seventeen years; but the salaries paid to the officials in the Custom
House are almost exactly as they were seventeen years ago. In some respects the
prospects of the senior clerks are positively worse.”
Surely, then, your Lordship will agree with me in thinking that John
Bull, in common justice, ought to give his Customs’ clerks an increase
of their salaries, to balance the augmented cost of bread and meat.
Honesty in such matters is clearly ihe best policy, for servants whe
are badly paid are rarely zealous in good work. Men who have the
charge of collecting twenty millions every year for Mr. Bull should
not be stinted in their salaries, but encouraged by good pay to do the
best for him they can. Let a liberal per-centage be added to the income
of the poor clerks in the Customs, and, depend on it, the income Mr.
Bull gets from the Customs will also be increased. So well-to-do a
gentleman should really feel ashamed to be a stingy skin-flint in the
payment of his servants ; and, as his best adviser,. I would beg him in
this matter to listen to the voice of justice and of wisdom, as uttered
to your Lordship, by your Lordship’s servant, 335&NC36