TERESITA MIA. Luna de mi al-ma, Duer-me-te entien-do la voz de mi pa-sion. 2. Buenas noches, Teresita mia, Dulces sueños te espero; Una serenada de mi amor, Una cancion ti canto. Duermete duermete, Teresita mia, TERESITA MIA. I think of thee, Teresita mia, When silver moonlight o'er the hills is streaming, Still I see those eyes so brightly beaming, These young men were stanch supporters of Don Carlos; and among the warm sympathizers in the cause, at St. Jean, was a certain friend of theirs, a Madame C. Knowing, of course, Fernando's hopeless adoration of Emilia, this good lady called on us and gave us a cordial invitation to attend her receptions. On one evening in the week she received English, and on another her Spanish friends. We were invited to both, but we infinitely preferred the Spanish evenings, because there was less formality and more music and fun. Madame C was a most curious little person. She was very short and very fat, and had the deepest voice I ever heard in a woman. She was always gorgeously attired when she made visits, and felt hurt if every one was not in full dress at her parties; but she herself received in a blue mousseline delaine dress, with white spots, her white hair all drawn back and fastened into a tight knot at the back of her head by a comb. This good little creature lived in the Maison Louis XIV., of which she was the proprietress. She boasted always of being connected with the "Grand Monarque," although she was very vague and misty as to details. However, she so evidently believed in And the pains of love too well I know. Good-night, fairest Teresita mia, May guardian angels evermore defend thee, Light of my eyes and bright star of my soul, the relationship herself that every one received the shadowy tale with apparent faith. Her house was really a curiosity. A copy of a well-known picture of Louis XIV. hung in her drawing-room. The most exquisite old lace formed valances for her mantel-pieces; and we ate and drank from china and glass of most curious design, all marked with L. XIV. and the crown. I shall never forget one of the many evenings we passed at her house. It was a gala night among the Carlists,-for Don Carlos was there. In repose his face was melancholy and sad; but it lighted up wonderfully in conversation. His spirits were cheerful, and he was immensely popular with his supporters. The evening was very hot, and the balcony at Madame C's being very wide, we all went out there to sit and get cool. Looking over the high road, we could see the lovely "Corona de España," the highest peak in the Spanish Pyrenees, bathed in moonlight and romance. Emilia was there, and Fernando, delighted to pour out his soul to her in music, coaxed his brothers to play, while he sang the following song: HOW IT WAS DONE Now that renewed attention is being directed to the evils that infest the civil service of this country and the best methods of correcting them, it is opportune to examine the means by which Great Britain has endeavored to purify and improve her civil service. Reform in the British civil service is a much newer thing than is generally supposed. It was not till 1853 that any systematic effort was made toward an improvement in the methods of selecting the civil servants of Great Britain. In that year Sir Stafford Northcote and Charles E. Trevelyan were appointed a committee to inquire into the organization of the permanent civil service, and to report the results of their inquiries to the lords of the treasury. Their report of November 23, 1853, may be said to be the foundation of the whole system of civil service examinations in Great Britain. They recounted the evils flowing from the old system of appointment in strong but temperate language. They declared that the civil service of the country did not attract the best men; that it was sought by the indolent, the unambitious, and the incapable, and that the junior clerkships were likely to be bestowed upon the sons or dependents of those having personal or political claims on the head of the department. As a remedy for these evils they recommended open, competing literary examinations, conducted by a single central board, for all appointments to junior situations in the public service, and the appointment of all persons on probation. Prior to that time examinations had been applied to the nominees for appointment in many branches of the service, but they were not uniform, and in most cases they were not effective. In the inland revenue service examinations had been introduced as far back as 1848, and they had also been in force in the customs service for some years. In some offices the examinations may have been a real test of fitness, but in many cases they were merely formal. Edward Romilly, secretary of the Board of Trade, said that he had been a member of a board of examiners for twelve years, and that not one candidate had been rejected by the board. These examinations were in no case competitive, but were simply "pass," or test examinations of candidates nominated in the usual way. In one important respect the evils to be IN GREAT BRITAIN. dealt with in Great Britain differed from those from which the civil service of this country suffers. Here, one of the chief evils is the uncertainty of tenure, the liability of the civil servants to summary and insulting dismissal, whenever their influence weakens or their political fidelity is suspected, and the certainty of a sweeping change of the public employés, from highest to lowest, upon a change in the political complexion of the administration. There, the tenure of the rank and file of the service was secure. Only the political heads of departments changed with the administration. Except in cases of personal culpability, the only way of getting rid of an incompetent or indolent clerk was by pensioning.. After a man was once appointed, the public had him for life. The evils sprang almost wholly from the defective methods of selecting the public servants in the first instance. Sir James Stephen, who was for thirty-five years connected with the colonial department, said that the majority of persons appointed in that department possessed an incredibly low degree of requisite qualities, and that the same was true of other departments; that nepotism was prevalent in the public service, and that the places were usually given to friends or dependents of the appointing power. Another officer said that of eighty clerks supplied by patronage, not more than twelve were worth their salt. A retired civil officer declared that some of the clerks assigned to his office were unable to read or write, that one could not number beyond ten, and that in some instances upon a new appointee's presenting himself he was at once given a month's leave of absence, in order that he might learn to write! The course pursued with Northcote and Trevelyan's report is a good illustration of the thorough, systematic manner in which the British consider public questions. Copies of the report, accompanied by a plan of competition, drawn up by the Rev. B. Jowett of Baliol College, were sent to a large number of eminent gentlemen,-including professors of universities, heads of colleges, men distinguished for their learning, chiefs of departments and other high officers, as well as some who had retired after long and distinguished service,-with a request for an expression of their judgment upon the plan proposed. The opinions furnished in response to this request were most of them very full and elaborate, and make in all a stout octavo volume of 438 pages. Their general tone was highly favorable to the proposed system of competitive examinations. The most unfavorable comments were made by a few department officials who had grown up under the old system, and who took umbrage at some of the expressions in the report derogatory to the character of the service. No direct action was taken by the government upon the report of the committee of inquiry. The royal speech of 1854 called attention to the subject, and stated that Her Majesty would direct a plan to be laid before Parliament to improve the system of admission and increase the efficiency of the service. Owing to a change of ministry the promised plan was not presented, but on May 21, 1855, was issued the famous order in council relative to the examination of candidates for admission to the civil service. The order appointed a civil service commission of three members, and directed that all young men who were proposed for appointment to any junior situation in any department should be examined by or under the direction of the commission before being admitted to probation. The commission was required to ascertain with respect to each candidate that he was within the limits of age prescribed, that he was free from any physical defect or disease likely to interfere with the discharge of his duties, that his character was such as to qualify him for the public employment, and that he possessed the requisite knowledge and ability. The rules of examination were to be settled at the discretion of the heads of departments, and the commission was prohibited from making any alteration in respect to the nomination or appointment of candidates. Successful candidates were required to be appointed for a probationary term of six months. If, by the expiration of that time, proofs of their conduct and capacity had been presented to the chief of the department, they were to be re-appointed. It will be seen that this plan fell very far short of the scheme of unrestricted competition recommended by the committee of inquiry. Patronage was still permitted to have full sway in the nomination of the candidates. Appointments might still be made for political and personal reasons as freely as before. The only condition imposed was that the nominee should obtain a cer tificate of qualification from the civil service commission. Nevertheless, it was a great improvement on the previous order of things, and in time became the stepping-stone to a still better system. The most salutary feature was the establishment of a board of experienced and capable men, independent of the appointing power. By this means a fair and uniform system of examination was secured. The original commission consisted of Sir Edward Ryan, assistant comptrollergeneral of the exchequer, John George Shaw Lefevre, clerk-assistant to the House of Lords, and Edward Romilly, then chairman of the board of audit. Mr. Romilly, however, never acted as a member of the commission. The commission immediately entered upon the performance of its duties. In June, 1855, a circular was addressed to the heads of departments, preliminary to settling the regulations governing the examinations for their departments, and on the 30th of that month was held the first examination under the order in council. The first report of the commission, dated March 4, 1856, showed that, to the close of February, 1,078 candidates had been examined, and that certificates of qualification had been granted to 676 of them. The range of examination varied widely for different positions and different branches of the service. Although neither the order in council, nor the regulations under it, required the nomination of more than one candidate for each vacancy, several of the offices voluntarily adopted the plan of limited competition. Three or more candidates were nominated for each vacancy, and were subjected to the same examination, the one standing highest receiving the appointment. Seven such competitive examinations had been held when the report was submitted, in which 175 candidates competed for 58 situations. This practice met with considerable favor, and was somewhat extended during subsequent years, although most of the examinations were pass examinations of a single nominee. To February 25, 1858, 127 examinations had been held, in which limited competition was applied. Thirty of these were held in 1856, 68 in 1857, and 29 in the first two months of 1858. The commissioners stated in their report for 1858 that they had carefully compared the results of the pass examinations with those of the competitive examinations, and that the best of the candidates in the latter were better than the best of those in the former. As the result of their experience, they reported that com petition was the best method of securing | before being admitted to the competition, junior clerks. The House of Commons had already twice approved the competitive principle, and declared that it ought to be extended (first, by the resolution of April 24, 1856, and again, by the resolution of July 14, 1857), basing its opinion on the results of the examinations conducted by the civil service commission. Its action in this respect was in strong contrast to the indifference manifested by our own Congress toward a similar experiment in this country. NotwithstandNotwithstand ing the approval of the House of Commons and the recommendation of the commission, no measures were taken by the government at that time to extend the application of the competitive principle. In the year 1858 the plan of limited competition was still further extended, the practice being adopted in some departments of nominating more than three candidates for one vacancy, instead of only three as formerly. On January 18,1859, occurred the first open unrestricted competitive examination ever held in England for clerkships in a public office. The vacancies to be filled were in eight writerships in the office of the secretary of state for India. Three hundred and ninety-one competitors were summoned and three hundred and thirty-nine appeared. The subjects of the examination were not very formidable. They consisted of handwriting, copying from manuscript, orthography, arithmetic, including decimal and vulgar fractions, English composition, geography and history. In 1860 an important change was proposed in the plan of examination. In that year a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the mode of nominating and examining candidates. In their report of July 9, the competitive principle was very strongly approved, and the system of private patronage condemned. They did not, however, recommend the immediate adoption of the plan of open competition, believing that precipitancy in adopting it might lead to reaction. They thought that the general substitution of a system of limited but real competition for that of simple nomination would be an important step in advance, and recommended that each vacancy be competed for by at least three candidates, "to be nominated, as at present," except when there was but one vacancy, in which case there should be at least five competitors. They also recommended that each candidate, should pass a preliminary test, or pass examination in order that the competition might be real and not illusory. They also recommended that several vacancies should be competed for at one time and that the commissioners should examine into the moral and physical qualifications of candidates before, instead of after, examination. The report met with the approval of Lord Palmerston, and steps were at once taken to carry its recommendations into effect. There were still many offices which had not adopted the practice of limited competition recommended by the committee. The establishment of the preliminary pass examinations made an important change in the mode of procedure. They were introduced early in 1861 into the offices for which the treasury had the right of nomination, but were not extended to all of the other branches of the service until some time after. In 1860 limited competition was applied in 33.2 per cent. of the examinations. In 1861 the percentage increased to 53.8, but fell back to 42.2 in the next year, showing that the progress was by no means uniform. The names of the successful candidates in the pass examinations were entered on the qualified lists, from which all competitors for vacancies were chosen. All names not nominated were canceled on a change of ministry. This system continued in operation without material change until 1870. The nomination of candidates for examination was still a matter of patronage and influence. Interest with public officers and members of Parliament was indispensable to the seeker after a nomination. In their report for 1868 the commission gave a history of the progress of the competitive principle, and strongly advocated the adoption of the practice of open competition. They declared that, in most cases of limited competition, the candidates selected by the nominating departments were so few as to render the competition illusory. In 1870 the most important step yet made in the direction of reform was taken. On June 4 of that year an order in council was issued, directing that, with certain exceptions, all appointments either permanent or temporary to any situation or employment in any department of the civil service made after August 31 of that year should be made by means of open competitive examinations. The exceptions are: offices in the gift of the crown, places filled in the ordinary course of promotion by persons already serving in the de |