Christianity"the first true gentleman that ever breathed." Chaucer, too, in his "Romaunt of the Rose," has given an exquisite picture of the true gentleman :

"But understond in thine entent
That this is not mine entendement
To clepe no wight in no ages
Only gentle for his linages;
But who is so virtuous,

And in his port not outrageous,

When such one thou seest thee beforne,

Though he be not gentle borne,

Thou maiest well saine this in soth

That he is gentle, because he doth

As longeth to a gentleman."

OFFICE-SEEKING.

The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities.-BACON.

SOME years ago a Washington letter-writer, describing

a visit to General Cass, reported him to have said: "Office-seeking, in men, women and children, has become our national malady. God only knows how it is to be checked, or in what direction the cure lies." This unlucky speech provoked a volley of gibes and sarcasms from the press, by which its author was regarded very much in the light of a thief bellowing "Stop thief!" in a crowd. Having by assiduous effort climbed nearly to the topmost bough of the official tree, where snugly perched he could swing to and fro, and regale himself at leisure on its golden fruit, the old gentleman suddenly turned up his eyes in horror at the mania of office-seeking, and began thoughtfully considering the means of abating it. Such a spectacle reminds one of the distillers in the olden time, who, having filled their coffers by the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits, turned round in their old age, and becoming presidents of temperance societies, denounced in fiery periods the traffickers in "wet damnation."

Consistent or inconsistent in his denunciations, General Cass did not exaggerate in declaring office-seeking to be our national malady." There is probably no other coun

66

try in the world where the appetite for place and patronage is so universal and so craving. In view of the fact that the very best office for any man is that which he can make for himself by energy, industry, tact and faith; that private life offers ten times more inducements to an upright, ambitious man than any place within the people's gift; and above all, that the man who holds office for a few years loses all taste and energy for the ordinary pursuits of life, —it is marvelous to see what a greed for the loaves and fishes of office has seized upon all classes of the American people. Scarcely is a new president elected ere he is surrounded by a sea of upturned faces, with jaws distended, ready to catch the smallest morsel that may be thrown from the public trough. For months afterward the White House and the doors of the departments are besieged by a ravenous crowd of applicants begging for sops from the public table. Probably Washington was never before so overrun with political mendicants as during the first few months of Grant's administration. All the hotels were full of keen, gray-eyed men who longed to fill for four years some pet place under the government. The streets were thronged with them; the steamers and the railway carriages, the public departments, the steps of the senators' dwellings, the lobbies of the capital, the president's mansion, were crowded with long-limbed, nervous, eager-eyed men, who had hurried on the wings of steam to Washington to concentrate in one focus on the mind of the president all the myriad influences which, by letter, testimonial, personal application, unceasing canvass," and sleepless solicitation they could collect together. "Every Senator," says a Washington correspondent, writing at the time, "has a clientelle more numerous than had the most popu

lar young Roman noble who ever sauntered down the Via · Sacra. If one of them ventures out of cover the cry is raised, and he is immediately run to earth. The printing presses are busy with endless copies of testimonials, which are hurled at everybody with reckless profusion." The hungry swarms that killed Harrison outright, shortened the days of Taylor, and gave Lincoln nearly as much trouble as the rebellion itself, were outnumbered by the hosts of patriots who besieged and beseeched Grant that they might serve their country, and draw salaries for the same. So violent at times has been the pressure in the departments, that roundabouts, it is said, have been adopted as the uniform,— the officials finding skirts a serious impediment to locomotion, as the cormorants would grab at their coat-tails when they darted from door to door.

As at Washington, so at the state capitals, and wherever there are offices, even with starvation salaries, to fill. The scramble of fifty applicants for every vacancy in the post-office or police force of Chicago is no anomaly, but a single example of the mania that rages throughout the country. A Massachusetts newspaper states that at a political convention, held a few years ago at Worcester, in that state, for the nomination of a governor, there were numbers of respectable men, with anxious faces, eager eyes, and busy tongues, engaged in electioneering for of fices. The second place on the ticket, a comparatively insignificant position, was sought for by a sufficient number of able-bodied and able-minded men to form a military company. There were embryo treasurers, auditors, and secretaries enough, aching for office and begging aid to get it, to manage the finances of France; while three or four of the cleverest fellows in the commonwealth crossed

and recrossed one another's paths in the halls of the hotels and the lobbies of the convention hundreds of times, in eager, personal striving against one another for the office of attorney-general, and succeeded in dividing the convention so that no one obtained a majority of votes.

It was not always thus that office was regarded by the people of this country. Within this century, and even within the last fifty years, a revolution has taken place in the public sentiment on the subject. In the ante-revolution times, office-holding was regarded like serving on the jury, as a burden, to be avoided rather than coveted. So deep and general was the feeling, that it became necessary to enforce the acceptance of office by legal penalties. The private citizen who shunned notoriety, or deemed his time too precious to permit him to serve his country, was obliged to purchase his exemption by a fine. In 1632 the General Court of Plymouth passed an act that "whoever should refuse the office of governor should pay £20 sterling, unless he should be chosen two years successively, and whoever should refuse the office of councillor or magistrate should pay £10." When afterward the people had become richer, and with wealth had acquired leisure, they were more willing to accept office, but they never thought of nominating themselves, much less of making stumpspeeches, going about to beg for votes, packing conventions with their friends, or resorting to any of the other degrading arts that are now employed by the successful politician. Many of the great men who then took office, did so with reluctance-electioneering, if they did so, to prevent their nomination — declining a reëlection; and if they served a second term, it was because the people, knowing their fitness, dragged them from the quiet and seclu