to be absent from the office during office hours, except upon public business, so neither will he tolerate absence and neglect in his clerks. It will give the office a bad name if those who are paid to be at work are seen traversing the city or country during office hours in pursuit of business or pleasure. Besides, urgent business may come into the office during their absence requiring special attention. But they must be at their posts during the six hours, whether they have anything to do or not, and they must be ready and willing to labor, before or after office hours, whenever the public interest may require it. In cases of sickness or family distress, the Auditor will not be backward to grant them every needful indulgence.

"At present the business of the office is somewhat in arrears, and no man need eat the bread of idleness. The Auditor is anxious that all arrearages shall be brought up, so that every account which is presented may receive instant attention.

"When the clerks enter the office they must lay aside all thought of everything but their official duties. They must not spend the hours of business in reading newspapers, or books, or writing private letters, or in any private concerns. For all those things, the public allows them sufficient time, morning and evening. Nor must they bring into the office loungers or idlers, or employ their time in conversing with friends or strangers upon other topics than their own current business. By suffering no intrusion to interrupt them, they will soon be rid of all intruders.

"It is natural for those engaged in public service to think lightly of public property. Without compunction they apply to their own use that which belongs to the people, when they would scorn to be guilty of a like act in relation to their neighbor. Yet it is in principle the same crime. He who applies to his own use the books or stationery of the public, is just as guilty in the eye of morality as he who takes his neighbor's property without leave and applies it to his own use. A public officer would be as justifiable in taking money from the Treasury, and bestowing it upon his family and neighbor, as he is in giving them a quire of paper from the public stock. It is by little and little that the moral sense is blunted and destroyed. It may be said there is no harm in taking, for our own use or giving to a friend, a few quills or a little paper which belongs to the public, because nobody will feel it. The transition is perfectly natural to a few cents, and a few dollars, and a few hundreds, until the Treasury is assailed and plundered of its thousands. It is important to guard against the slightest violation of principle. If we never suffer ourselves to do wrong in small things, we shall not be in danger of doing wrong in great things. Let me enjoin it upon the clerks of this office, in the use of the stationery, or whatever else belongs to the public, to be as rigidly just as they would be in the use of that which belongs to their neighbor. They will then not only never be guilty of extensive frauds, but they will never be tempted.

"Not only the public interest, but the reputation of our government and country require the practice of rigid morality by those engaged in public business. Gambling, intemperance, and extravagance ought not to be tolerated in the agents of the people. An habitual gambler can scarcely be a man of integrity. He who takes from his fellow-citizen thousands of dollars, re

ducing his wife and children to beggary upon a fortunate deal of cards, would not long hesitate to take thousands from the government, if he thought he could do it without detection or responsibility. Such a man ought not to be trusted in public office. The intemperate man, if not led into other vices by his indulgencies, is no better than a lunatic. A madman ought as soon to be trusted in office. Extravagant habits of any kind, leading to expenditures beyond our income, ought not to be tolerated in a public officer. One whose income is fixed and certain has no excuse for exceeding it in his expenditures. Vain show and foolish aping of men of wealth in public agents, ought not to be encouraged. Much less ought government, by continuing salaries to vain and improvident men, give them credit in society and enable them to swindle farmers, mechanics, and merchants out of their produce, labor, and goods.

"As the Fourth Auditor will not knowingly appoint a gambler, drunkard, or grossly immoral man to any place in his office, so he should consider it his duty to remove any clerk who might contract such habits. He is proud to believe that the character of his office now stands unimpeachable on those points, and it shall be his pride, as it is his duty, to keep it so.

"In everything except the business of the office it will give pleasure to the auditor to treat his clerks as equals. He recognizes no superiority in one good man over another, further than a due discharge of public duties requires. While, therefore, he exacts a strict performance of every official duty from every clerk under his control, he shall consider himself no more than their equal as a man and a citizen, ever ready, by all just means, to promote their comfort, comply with their wishes, and increase their happiness.

"1. Every clerk will be in his room, ready to commence business, at nine o'clock, A. M., and will apply himself with diligence to the public service until three o'clock, P. M.

"2. Every clerk will hold himself in readiness to discharge any duty which may be required of him in office hours or out, and in no case where by laboring a short time after office hours an account can be closed or a citizen released from attendance at this city, must he refrain from continuing his labors after three o'clock.

"3. Newspapers or books must not be read in the office unless connected directly with the business in hand, nor must conversation be held with visitors or loungers except upon business which they may have with the office.

"4. Gambling, drunkenness, and irregular and immoral habits will subject any clerk to instant removal.

"5. The acceptance of any present or gratuity by any clerk from any person who has business with the office, or suffering such acceptance by any member of his family, will subject any clerk to instant removal.

"6. The disclosure to any person out of the office of any investigation going on, or any facts ascertained in the office, affecting the reputation of any citizen, is strictly prohibited without leave of the Auditor.

"7. No person will be employed as a clerk in this office who is engaged in other business. Except the attention which the families of clerks require, it is expected that all their time, thoughts, and energies will be devoted to the public service.

"8. Strict economy will be required in the use of the public stationery or

other property. No clerk will take paper, quills, or anything else belonging to the government from the office for the use of himself, family, or friends.

Although it is necessary in transacting the business of the office that there should be implicit obedience to all just requisitions, and entire subordination of the clerks to the head, yet it will give the Auditor pleasure on all occasions to treat his clerks and their families as equals and friends. Forgetting every difference of opinion, he hopes and expects that all will be actuated by one spirit in the service of that country which protects all in their rights of property and conscience. He doubts not that he will find in them a prompt and efficient co-operation in every investigation and measure tending to expose delinquents, reform abuses, enforce the laws, and introduce rigid and just principles into the settlement of public accounts. It is thus only that we shall gain the lasting regard of good men, and, by restoring the purity, contribute to the lasting duration of the best government which Heaven ever gave, or man ever enjoyed."

CHAPTER XII.

THE fidelity with which Mr. Kendall, for five years, conducted the business of the Fourth Auditor's office, educing order from confusion, exacting strict accountability, and correcting abuses hoary with age, elicited numerous commendations from friends, and even for a time silenced the clamor of his enemies who practically adopted the maxim that the Jackson administration could do nothing right.

The following letter is a sample of many found among Mr. Kendall's papers:

A. KENDALL, ESQ.,

SHELBY COUNTY, KY., September 4, 1829.

SIR, - Your friends and fellow-citizens of Shelby County have seen with great satisfaction the bold, prompt, and decisive manner in which you have employed the opportunities of your place in the present administration to crush the corruption which had raised such a fearful head at Washington. During past years that city has been signalized by official indulgences, political intrigues, and the venal application of the public patronage. You have honestly redeemed the pledges which your uniform course as editor, in vindicating the popular rights and the principles of democracy, gave to the public. You have given the example of an officer abolishing the aristocratic privileges which former incumbents had introduced into your station, by declining to use the public purse at once to administer to your personal indulgence, and to corrupt the organs of public information by refusing the franking privilege through the medium of your office, which had been previously allowed to all who desired it, and by cutting off the corrupt influence of executive legislation, which, under the name of construction, gave to a single department of the public service many thousands of dollars more of the nation's money than was authorized by law. But the example you have set in the case of Dr. Watkins is of the highest use to your country. It is calculated to bring back the public functionaries to a strictness in the conduct of their offices which will secure future accountability, and it is to be hoped will check the growth of fraud and

peculation in our government, which seems to have struck so deep a root. Your honest vigilance in detecting, and boldness in denouncing and bringing to justice fraudulent defaulters and peculators, have brought down on you the vengeance of the aristocracy. You are charged with monstrous crimes which we disdain to mention in connection with your name, and you are invited to sue in Lexington for these libels on your character. Sir, your reputation belongs to your country, a country which will never suffer it to become a prey to the artifices of the bad men whose dangerous policy and violated faith it has fallen to your lot to expose. We trust you will scorn to submit your honest standing to the tricks of the bar and a jury of your enemies. The men who are arrayed against you have already given an evidence of the success with which they can suborn witnesses and influence a judicial tribunal. They cannot, however, control public opinion, by which they stand condemned, and by which you will be forever protected against their malicious invective."

Mr. Atwater threatens, and receives the following reply:

WASHINGTON, July 15, 1831.

SIR, Your letter of the 11th instant is just received. Although I had not time to answer all your previous letters, I urged forward your business as much as I properly could. But for the last paragraph in your letter, I should have rejoiced at the information I have just received, that your account has been adjusted and a balance found due and forwarded to you. That paragraph is as follows: "Unless I hear immediately from you my book will contain several pages I had hoped to have withheld. Human nature can only bear a certain amount of

suffering."

I fear the receipt of this money will have the effect to suppress these "several pages"; and had not your account been adjusted, I should certainly have advised its delay until the appearance of your "book."

To be plain, sir, I understand this paragraph as a threat that, unless your claims be allowed, you will publish something derogatory to the administration. I hope I do not understand you correctly; but if I do, I beg leave to inform you that when you again advance such arguments in support of pecuniary claims against the government, you must find some other advocate to present them.

With due respect,

CALEB ATWATER, ESQ.

Your obedient servant,

AMOS KENDALL.

Mr. Kendall's early fondness for the study of Natural Philosophy and Mechanics lasted throughout his life, and the subject of per