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quickness of mind which makes such knowledge always available in a hurry, and withal much experience and dexterity. The Post Office Department keeps a minute account of the errors committed by each clerk on his route, and this account enters into his record.
The Republicans having been in power for twenty-four years, the Railway Mail Service consisted in 1885 of pretty well trained men. At that period there occurred, as recorded, one error to every 5,575 pieces of mail matter handled. But in 1885 the Democrats came into power, and the Railway Mail Service not being then under the Civil Service Rules, they pounced upon it as a part of the spoils of victory. Instantly the number of errors rose to the proportion of one to every 4,228 pieces of mail matter handled, and as the partisan changes in the service continued, in the following year to the proportion of one to 3,364. The new men becoming more experienced, the proportion improved again, until in 1889 it reached one error to 3,954. At the close of his Administration President Cleveland put the Railway Mail Service under the Civil Service Rules, the order to take effect some time after the beginning of his successor's term of office. But the Republicans, returning to power, availed themselves, with Mr. Wanamaker's—the Postmaster-General's—coöperation, of the intervening period to treat the railway clerkships as party spoils once more. Instantly the number of errors increased again, reaching the proportion of one to 2,834. Meanwhile, the Civil Service Rules went into force, and, although there was another change of party in power in 1893, the proportion of errors for that year fell to the unprecendentedly favorable proportion of only one to 7,144. And Postmaster-General Bissell hopes to see the proportion of errors reduced to one in 10,000 before he leaves office. This is practical Civil Service Reform in one of the most important branches of the public service, demonstrated by figures.
Other branches would show like results did the nature of their business permit a similar mathematical demonstration. A member of the United States Civil Service
