The Spoils of Office.
The New York correspondent of the Boston Post thus enumerates the
Federal offices in that city, with the corresponding salaries:
First in importance and revenue is the collectorship, with its Read salary of $5,210, and some $8,000 more in the form of pickings and fees.
In the custom-house, as subordinates to the great
Tycoon above referred to, are, an auditor at $4,000;
assistant auditor $3,000; cashier $3,000;
assistant cashier $2,500; seven deputy collectors $2,500 each; general appraiser $2,500; three appraisers $2,500, six assistant appraisers $2,000; chief entry clerk $2,000; warehouse superintendent $2,000; drug examiner $2,000; thirty-three clerks at $1,500; thirty-three weighers, gaugers and measurers at $1,400; twenty-six clerks at $1,400; one liquidating clerk at $1,000; tea clerkships at $1,300; thirty-one at $1,200; fifty-eight at $1,100; two hundred and sixty one inspectors at $1,095; thirty-four clerks at $1,000; and one hundred and twenty-two regular salaried clerks, &c., whose pay varies from $400 to 800 per annum.
I need not enlarge upon the suggestive it in of extra service, fees, and the long detail of similar methods of increasing both the number and pay of officials in this department of Uncle Samuel's household; nor need I refer to the local light-house service, with its immense patronage — say $30,000.
Then, as a sort of corollary, must be named the naval office, with its chief officer, at $4,950; and the indefinite (or rather infinite) fees; three deputies, $2,000; two subordinates at $1,500, seven at $1,400, two at $1,200, five at $1,050, twenty-five at $1,000, and thirteen at from $500 to $900. Let me not omit mention of the surveyor's office, which furnishes easy chairs for the following officials: Surveyor, $4,200; two deputies at $2,000; one clerk at $4,200; four at $1,100; five at $1,000; and several "subs" at from $500 to $700 each.
The post-office is always vastly overestimated as a source of income to its incumbent, albeit the late lamented
Mr. Fowler found it a profitable place.
The actual salary is only $2,000, with a commission upon the rent of the boxes and sundry fees and grabbing, which, united, make the place worth from five to eight thousand honest dollars per annum.
The patronage, however, is quite extensive, as will be seen from the fact that there are some two hundred and sixty-five employees connected with our dirty, dilapidated Dutch church in Nassau street. Of these, six get $2,000, thirty-six from $1,000 to $1,500, and more than two hundred subsiston yearly stipends varying from $250 to $900.
