HOMAGE TO THE PUBLIC SERVICE.
r. Punch is not in the habit of frequently admitting that he is in the wrong. If he were, he would be in the habit of frequently telling a falsehood. But he has been sometimes led into error. Any person can “sell” an unsuspecting gentleman, because in good society frankness and straightforwardness are considered proper, and persons do not lie in wait to snap up one another, whereas a smart bagman or shrewd attorney’s-clerk is perfectly unsaleable, and always wide-awake. Hence Mr. Punch has once or twice formed an erroneous judgment, which he has freely confessed. There may have been half-a-dozen grains of common sand in the millions of grains of the purest gold dust with which he has been filling the hour-glass of Time for the last eighteen years. He is now going to own that there is one more sand-grain to account for. He has been undervaluing the intellectual accomplishments of members of the public service.
There may be some excuse for him. Certainly, as a general rule, talking to our Public Servants does not impress you with awful respect for their brains. If you discuss matters with one of those elegant young public servants from the West, you will be charmed with his collar, and delighted with his anecdotes of the “Jesuites de la robe courte” – usually known as the ballet. If you converse with one of those smart young public servants from the East, you will be enchanted with his powers of slang, and instructed by his researches in the casinoes. If you engage in friendly confabulation with an exciseman, you will be put up to some curious dodges practised in the world he persecutes, and hear much abuse of his superior officers, and if you talk to a postman – which you ought not to do when he is on his rounds – you will hear, with indignation, that he is extremely hard worked and ill paid. But there is not much in the conversation of these Public Servants to impress you with a notion of what they must have learned – of their marvellous knowledge.
Examinations have been heard of, no doubt, and Mr. Punch himself has given some specimens thereof, in the way of parable and illustration. But does anybody know the real examination – what its terrors are – what its tremendous demands? Mr. Punch owns to having undervalued its awfulness. But happening to take up a book by Mr. John Boulger, called A Master Key to Public Offices, in which the author explains to every ambitious young man in England what he may get from Government, from Premiership to Postmanship – and how, Mr. Punch turned to the Specimens of Examination Papers. The real questions, mind, the real rocks against which Hope has been dashed to pieces. Among them were some which Mr. Boulger is good enough to call “easy,” but the phrase is a mockery. Look here, fathers – but you have flinty hearts, and will say, “he ought to be able to answer, after what I’ve spent on his schools;” no, look here, mothers of England, and see the questions on which the souls of your darlings in peg-tops are grated like nutmegs.
To get into the Custom House, a lot of geographical queries are put, which the victim has “from 2½ to 3 hours” to answer. Here is an “easy” one:-
“Which are the highest mountains of Europe? Give approximately [what's that?] the height of some of them, and of any of the Scotch or English mountains.”
Why a clerk in the Custom House should have to gauge mountains, unless he ascends them in search of smuggled mountain dew, is one satisfactory exact way, is another. Yet he has been up Snowdon, and Mont Blanc, and Etna, and Hecla, and Mount Pleasant. But here is another:-
“State the greatest length of England, Ireland, and Scotland. the number of sqare miles, and the population in each [mile?] according to the las census.”
Why, the demand is perfectly insulting. How many fishes are there in the sea? But now try the Inland Revenue, which means Taxes.
“Name the Independent Sovereigns belonging to the Germanic Confederation.”
If this is to teach the young tax-gatherers to look sharp after sovereigns generally, we can understand it. But what’s this for?-
“On a rough outline map of India mark the positions of Agra, Lahore, Cape Cormorin, the Kistnah, the Godavery, Assam, and the Run of Cutch.”
The Run of Cutch, indeed! The run of kegs might be more to the purpose, though that should be asked of the Customs-candidate. Who, of Mr. Punch’s readers reading the above, can comply with the demand? Upon honour, now, what’s the Kistnah, Viscount Williams? Yet you have obtained a gaudy coronet.
Let us pass to History. The fourth demand is,-
“Give an account of the Star Chamber, the Constitutions of Clarendon, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act.”
Would the examiners be merciless if a poor bewildered lad, after looking at them tearfully, should write-
“The Star Chamber was a celebrated Observatory, Lord Clarendon has a very good constitution, I see in the paper yesterday as the Petition of Right was wrong, and going to be knocked up in Parliament, and the Habeas Corpus Act is a blessed invention?”
Would he be plucked, or would they try him again with-
“State, distinctly, the claims asserted by Edward the Fourth and his rivals, respectively, to the throne of England”?
Or would they give him one more chance?-
“Give an account of the political and social state of England (1) at the Accession of Henry the Eight, (2) at the date of the Restoration.”
But that is nothing. Talk to a War-Office Clerk, next time you meet him at Paddy Green’s, and ask him this. He has answered it, so must be able to do it again.
“Who were the contending parties in the following battles:- Marathon, Cannae, Ilerda, Granicus, Chaeronea, Pavia, Vittoria, Marengo, Borodino, Megiddo. Describe minutely the circumstances and results of any three, and in all cases give the dates.”
If the War-Office Clerk answers you except by a libation of Mr. Green’s excellent stout in your face, you ought to stand him poached eggs, or any other delicacy he may put a name to. And then when he is in a very good humour, ask him what he answered to this:-
“Sketch the history of the Peloponnesian War, mentioning the States concerned in it, the chief men who took part in it, and its results.”
And then, perhaps, you had better change the subject, and remark upon the excellence of the beer.
But suppose a candidate wants to get into Somerset House, he must be prepared for this:-
“I buy wine of A. for £50, and sell it to B. for £55. B. gives me a bill for £25 and cash for £30, and I pay A. on account. Give the journal entries A. and B. would make for these transactions.”
We sadly fear the “journal” would run this way. “Told A. I’d give him £50 for his wine, but it was such fishy stuff I offered it to B. for £55. He forked out £30, and gave me a bill for £25, and as he’ll find out the bad swizzle before that’s due, I shall never get a shilling of that, so I have his bill to A. and spent the tin, and that matter’s off my mind.”
But, finally and lastly, what do you, young friends, say to this?-
“Take three hours, and write a comparison between the English national character, and that of any other people, ancient or modern.”
You can’t do it in three hours. But perhaps the Examiners would let you do it n three minutes, from some nursery reminiscences:-
“Two skinny Frenchmen and one Portuguee,
One jolly Englishman will lick ‘em all three.”
“Write an account of any part of Great Britain or Ireland with which you are acquainted with special reference to the agriculture or commerce there carried on, and the social state and manners of the population.”
The following is the specimen of a reply to this inquiry, and the candidate was instantly recommended to office:-
“Well, I don’t know. There’s Squashford where I was raised. As for agriculture, the farmers is uncommon stupid and sulky, and don’t get beery, oh no I on market days. There’s no commerce like, the shops is all shy, and if you ask for anything, it’s my head to a ‘aperny they haven’t got it, but it’s coming next week if you please. The population are not social at all, but quite the reverse, and as for manners, my eye! an educated bear beats’em to fits. I don’t know the latitude and longitude, but it’s on the South-Northern line, and a precious dirty walk from the station.”
But has not Mr. Punch made out his proposition that men who have taken such honours ought to be held in honour? Henceforth, he takes off his hat whenever he sees a Public Servant.
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