Press enter after choosing selection

Scraps Of Useful Information No 3

Scraps Of Useful Information No 3 image
Parent Issue
Day
5
Month
January
Year
1846
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

For the Signal of Liberty. Scraps Of Useful Information No. 3. In looking over the expenditures of the British Government, for 1845, we find that about $20,000,000 were paid to 114,752 Non-Effective men in the army, navy and Ordnance Department, embracing, probably, half pay officers and other pensioners. The expenditures, during the same year, for the Civil Government, including all allowances to the several branches to the Royal Family, and to the King of the Belgians; for the establishment of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; salaries and expenses of both Houses of Parliament, including printing; for the whole Judiciary Department, including the expenses of the Police and Criminal Prosecutions, and all the salaries and superannuations allowances to foreign ministers and consuls, and for all other pensions and annuities on the civil list did not amount to $15,000,000!! Seven millions of dollars a year less than the sum paid to these non-effective, do-nothing men connected with the British Army and Navy. There are 563 judges in the United Kingdom, whose salaries amount to $1,785,022 per annum. - Nor are they non-effective men in their department, but men that honor the British name and give dignity to human laws throughout Christendom. Yet for all their profound learning and assiduous labor, they do not receive in ELEVEN YEARS what is paid in ONE to the do-nothings of the British Army and Navy! But let us come back to this model republic and see if like abuses exist in this economy. - In looking into the Register of the U.S. Navy, we find this to be a fact with regard to the actual service and pay of our naval officers in the earlier periods of our national existence. From 1815 to 1823 a period of about 8 years, there were 28 Captains, whose average time of service during this period, was less than two years; thirty Commandants, a little over two years; one hundred and seventy-two Lieutenants, less than three and a half; and eight Chaplains, less than one and a half years. In the Naval Register for 1845, it will be seen that of 1,591 naval officers under pay of the government, THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE were waiting orders!! Their salaries are at the fixed allowance fr officers thus waiting orders, amounted to $444,170!! Add to this the salaries of 8 Marine officers and Engineers, waiting orders the same year, we have the sum of $448,356 paid to non-effective officers of our navy. Now the sum paid in 1845 to 278 members of Congress and to 58 Judges of the Supreme and District Courts of the United States, was $445,500, less than the amount received by these naval officers while waiting orders. It would be easy to prove that non effective men in this department alone receive annually more pay than is allowed to the members of the Senate and House of Representatives,and to all the Judges of the Supreme and District Courts of the United States. Is not this fact worthy the consideration of our national Legislature and Judiciary? E.B. Worcester, U.S.A. Dec. 6, 1845.