EVASION OF PUBLIC DUTIES IN THE 011 'I'm magnates of
the City are again shirking the performance of public duties : nominated as Sheriffs, Mr. Grissell and Mr. Moore decline to serve, and are " excused." This refusal to serve in pub. lie offices is one of the symptoms of national decline. What can be the reason ? It must be that the two gentlemen are so busy in the accumulation of wealth that they do not like to be interrupted; and selfish considerations of the kind are said, in the philosophic slang of the day, to be " enlightened," because, if everybody got on, all would be well off, busy, and orderly, and then the state would be self-working. But everybody does not feel the im- pulse to absorption in business—many persons, whole classes, feel very different impulses indeed ; and the state has to provide against roguery and turbulence. Well, that is done : if Mr. Moore and Mr. Grissell do not act as Sheriffs, somebody else will ; men, it is to be presumed, who would not so readily have been chosen—men, at all events, less manifestly desirable. Affairs must be proportionately less well conducted ; and ultimately the " enlightened selfish" will have to pay, in some way or other, for not attending to public business themselves. Indeed, the discussion in the Court of Aldermen, on Tuesday, exposed a state of things already rotten to the oore. Certain subordinate officers, it was openly alleged, put in nomina- tion persons reluctant to serve, as a means of extorting their fines; and then provided, at the eleventh hour, persons under some small ambition, of whom it may be said that the desire to have them in that office lay with themselves. It would not be easy to furnish a worse description—eligible men reluctant to serve, with a trading in public offices. The practice of mutual excuse is bad, and in the present matter seems to be unnecessary. We believe that, in spite of these ugly signs, there is a considerable degree of public-spirit in the City. On Tuesday, more than one Alderman expressed confidence that, after what had passed, the reluctant gentlemen would accept the offices held out to them; and it is a. pity, we think, that an ex- ample of exacting the sacrifice, in a spirit of generous constraint,
was not established. One auxiliary to the more healthy public- spirit would be found in a measure already " looming in the fu- ture," to institute a federal corporation for the whole metropolis. A General Council for the Metropolis would be the Parliament of a state small only in territorial extent, and no man would think it beneath him to enter it.
Previous page
