Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1879 — OFFICIAL CORRUPTION. [ARTICLE]

OFFICIAL CORRUPTION.

Dishonesty in the I’ostofflce Department— Men in High Station Plundering the Treasury. [Washington Cor. New York Sun.] The amount of money expended by officeholders of the fraudulent administration in junketing tours at home and in pleasure travel abroad exceeds all former experience. This is done under the pretext of official business, which is a thin disguise for habitual raids on the treasury. James N. Tyner took his family and one or two more subordinates of the Postoffice Department to Paris to attend the Exposition last year, using as a cover for that trip a so-called international postal convention. He expended about SIO,OOO, and made no report of any kind that can now be found on the files of the department. Subsequently he made up a party for the Pacific coast, accompanied by the Third Assistant Postmaster General, A. D. Hazen, and his family, and chief clerk, ostensibly to look after improvement in the postal service, but really for amusement and recreation. They managed to spend some $6,000, and made no report, thus proving, as in the other case, that the whole thing was a sham, so far as public duty or public interest was concerned, but a costly reality to the taxpayers. Tyner and Burnside, the prosperous Superintendent and disbursing officer of the Postoffice Department, were out on a hunting expedition in the Ute country when the fatal descent was made on Thornburgh’s.command, but got back unharmed, and are doubtless ready to start on another excursion. The bill for this last trip has pot yet been rep-

dered, but it will doubtless be relatively as big as the others. Mr. Blackfan, Superintendent of Foreign Mails, has been several times abroad, professedly in connection with postal treaties, but actually for his own ease and comfort. Dr. McDonald, Superintendent of Money-Order System, is now in Europe examining, as is alleged, the foreign methods of paying money out by postoffice orders, upon which ours is modeled, and which are annually reported by all the Governments that have adopted this practice. An excuse is readily invented whenever any of these or other postoffice assistants or superintendents or chief clerks or favorites want to make a European tour at the expense of the public. Erring Brother Key is not consulted. They come and go at their own convenience, and the cost is charged to some general fund, so that the personal items never appear in the official statements. Year after year the deficit of the Postoffice Department increases, and no inquiry is made beyond the general receipts and expenditures. Tens of thousands are annually covered up, which form part of a systematic plunder, and when committees pretend to investigate charges that are known to be true they are whitewashed just as those against Tyner and others were in the last Congress, who had been flourishing about Washington and making the contingent fund pay for their paiade. The Committee of Appropriations will do well to call for the extra expenses of all officials of the different departments before voting the regular supply bills for the next year. SECRETARY EVARTS PROTECTING OFFICIAL THIEVES. It has been semi-officially announced that John 8. Mosby, United States Consul at Hong Kong, China, is to be recalled. The alleged reason for this is that he caused one of his dispatches to be printed in the newspapers, and that this, being a violation of the Consular regulations, is sufficient to warrant his decapitation. * The real reason, however, is that Mosby has made himself exceedingly active in ferreting out some of the frauds of the Seward ring in China. He had not been at his post two weeks before he discovered that David H. Bailey, his predecessor, had in one class of fees alone defrauded the United States Government of $30,000 or $40,000. He instantly reported this fact to the State Department. His dispatch on this subject was sent Feb. 20, 1879, and must have reached Washington long before Bailey, who had been nominated for Consul General at Shanghai, had been confirmed by the Senate. There was ample time for Mr. Evarts to withdraw Bailey’s nomination had he been disposed to bring a rogue to justice. But, in an authorized statement to the press in regard to the charges made by Mosby against Bailey, Mr. Evarts declared that he knew nothing of these allegations when the nomination was made. At best this is a mere subterfuge, because he could still have withdrawn the nomination. But the truth is that formal charges against Bailey had been made at the State Department by Mr. Wells, ex-Consul General at Shanghai, before the nomination of Bailey was sent to the Senate. Wells also tendered the evidence to prove that Bailey was nominated for this position at the special request of Minister Seward. It is a striking proof of the intimacy between Seward and Bailey that the latter refused to reinstate, *pn their return to Shanghai, the Marshal and office clerk who were called to Washington to testify by the House committee that investigated Seward’s case, and who were compelled to testify against him. That Mr. Evarts is determined, at all hazards, to prevent any further exposure of the criminal doings of the Seward ring in China is shown by his announcement that Mosby is to be recalled. He will not succeed, however. He was compelled to order an investigation of Mosby’s charges, and the result has been that they are sustained by unimpeachable evidence, and the agent directed to make the inquiry has so reported to the department.