hall, it selects one who has never built anything but small private houses. In this way, the hall, when built, is certain to be so defective as to require constant repairs, or it perhaps tumbles down altogether, amid the general approbation of the working classes, ever on the outlook for jobs.
This mode of conducting its business gives, as I have said, general satisfaction. There are, to be sure, a few grumblers, who contend that Government should be economical and get its work always done in the best possible style, which it could easily do as it has the whole extent of the country to choose from. But these form an insignificant minority and are looked upon as selfish tax-payers or impracticable ideologists.
If one of these grumblers and sticklers for economy, by his persistency and his eloquence, seemed to be producing an effect on the public, and was otherwise dangerous and annoying to the party in power, the chief would bestow on him the appointment of minister of some important department of state, for which he was especially disqualified by education and experience. That would not have mattered much, and he might have done as well as the other heads of departments, had he been willing to let things alone. But this he would never do. His services had been acquired and his place had been obtained by his economical theories. So he at once commenced to put them in practice. Knowing nothing about the subjects to which his department referred, he could look at them only as things to be financially pruned. In his zeal for economy he cared not how he offended and morally trod on the tender toes of those placed under his authority. Thus he set every one against him, and after a short tenure of office became the most un-
