Sir: The absurd nature of our civil service system is happily illustrated in the fact that a person like this “Captain” C. C. Duncan, of the Quaker City Expedition is able to obtain a high & responsible position under it. The absurdity is further illustrated in the fact that such a person is able to keep such a position after getting it.

two paragraphs canceled with boxes and vertical rules: What is the plain meaning of the above charges, after you scrape the polite crust from the words in which they are set forth? Simply this: That in “approei priating” other people’s money, Captain Duncan is a thief; that in grossly over-paying his sons, he is treacherous to his official duty;—otherwise, a sneak; that in being “arbitrary & unjust” in his decisions, he is a tyrant; that in “refusing to recognize exemptions specified in the law,” he is a shabby rascal; that in misusing his authority to rent offices from himself (for he is it mainly the “Seamen’s Association”) at four times their value, he is a fraud—& once more a thief. He begins as a thief, & ends as a thief.

Such is the plain meaning of the above charges, after being translated into pure English. Any one who has known Captain Duncan ten years,—as I have—will not have not the slightest difficulty in believing thatⒶemendation those charges describe the man’s character exactly.

If you are about to hire a cook, you require the candidate to bring references. But when the government proposes to hire a Shipping Commissioner & charge him with vast powers & responsibilities, no references are required. Anybody will do. answer. It would have taken but little time to inquire about this Duncan. individual. Then, if a proper person was really required for the place, this creature man would not have got it.

If you hire a cook & find you have made a mistake, you rectify it with a prompt discharge. Not so with the civil service system. These serious charges were all made against Duncan four or five years ago, & were published in the newspapers—yet cancellation and insertion in pencil this cancer still he still sticks to his place.

canceled with a partial box and vertical rules: I do not know, of my own personal knowledge, that this man is a thief—thaerefore I will bring no charge of that kind against him. But I do know of my own personal knowledge that he is a fraud (as I understand fraud) & will lie.

For instance, he gave out that the Quaker City was a first-class ship. If that was not plain, simple fraud, it was at

It is a curious remark to make, & yet I am obliged to acknowledge that in one way these charges raise “Captain” Duncan in my estimation. I am One could never suspect that so spiritless a lamb had pluck enough one so lamb-like had it in him to make “arbitrary decisions” or steal embezzle on a large, dignified scale. To pick a blind cripple’s To nip a nickel from a weeping convert’s pocket while he prayed over him would be more in his line, one would suppose. Mr. Duncan must have grown, since the old times. This tremendous accession of character bewilders me. must bewilder all who knew him in as the meek head-waiter of the “Quaker City.”

You cannot imagine a creature more little, & shabby & trivial than poorer sort of creature than he was, ten years ago. During the first day on board the “Quaker City,” he was a very great man for about eight or ten hours. ItⒶemendation was “Captain Duncan” here, & “Captain Duncan” there, & the mighty delighted man purred around, & gave comm aired his greatness aired himself on the quarter-deck, & was kittenishly happy. Then the ship went to sea, & there came a change. The owner of the vessel (Mr. Leary) & the executive officer (Mr. Bursley) “took his measure,” summoned him, & coll & coolly relieved him of his command. From that day forth, he was a cipher. The “captain” driveled feebly about protested gently against this high-handedⒶemendation usurpation (which indeed it was,) & but got small sympathy from the passengers. These preferred to trust their lives to the executive officer, who was every inch a man, whereas the “captain” was very manifestly a sheep. something infinitely conspicuously less. He fell into entire contempt. disregard—to put it no stronger. It was pathetic to see him come out on deck & spread his legs out with his quadrant & strike the nautical attitude & proceed to take the sun, going through his little performance with as much grandeur as if he thought his reckoning was going to find a place on the ship’s log, like any real captain’s. It was sorrowful to see him stand on the bridge, when entering a port, just like a real captain, & be obliged to see the pilot’s orders all transmitted through Mr. Bursley the executive officer instead of himself. He tearfully often threatened to require some consul to compel Mr. Leary & Mr. Bursley to observe the charter-party & cease from their usurpations, but somehow his courage always failed him when it came to the scratch. him at the critical moment.

The “captain” was not pa captain; he was not an officer; he was not a passenger. Then what was he? The passengers decided that since he was not none of these, & yet had authority to discharge waiter-boys—an authority which the passengers had not—he must naturally be the head-waiter. And so we he was dubbed, him, privately. It is rather amusing, in these days, to see our poor old head-waiter blandly calling himself the “captain of the Quaker City” in his lecture-advertisements. Only a born sham could do such a thing as that. However, that little sham pleases him & harms nobody.

“Captain” Mr. Duncan can do pray̭ more, hip hypocritical praying, & talk more nasal cant, piety, in a given length of time, than any other man on the seaboard—that is, provided he has an audience. He was the loudest, the longest, the most irrepressible & inextinguishable suppliant among the Quaker City’s pilgrims. We had a prayer-meeting in the ship’s main saloon every evening at 7 seven bells. These insertion in pencil meetings could have been made useful to the cause of religion, if the circumstances had been different; but the throught crept into many humble, seeking hearts, that if H Ⓐemendation heaven was to be populated with Duncans it might not be wise to proceed rashly in so serious a matter. There were some lowly, simpleⒶemendation souls, who thought the thing over without levity, & decided that barring certain defects, hell had its advantages.

The head-waiter Mr. Duncan has been a rabid total abstinence gladiator for forty years, publicly, & outspokenly. In Italy he primed himself daily with the cheap wines of the country—much to his credit, I thought, for it argued a relaxing of his rather hide-bound morals. But mark you, when he got home, he denied it. He denied it flatly. It seems to me that a person who would act like that, would almost lie prevaricate, upon a pinch.

Mr. Duncan created the Seamen’s Association himself, & lobbied engineered it through Congress. He got himself made boss master of it. A part of the scheme was a bank to be attached to it for the conservation of poor Jack’s savings. That is a trifle suggestive. One of my many crimes was the contributing of $25 to to Duncan’s pocket for that Seamen’s Association project. I have done many scoundrelly things, but none that I so blush for as this; for I did it with the deliberate conviction that no man would ever I consider that there was no justification for my assisting a man like him that in a project so dangerous to other men’s pockets the welfare of confiding, ignorant sailors.

In conclusion, I repeat that Duncan has grown, & grown prodigiously. Ten years ago we all thought him only a trivial, harmless, over-pious hypocrite & tuppenny fraud; no man could have persuaded us that there was stuff in him capable of compelling a grave official body of men to publicly recognize him as a glittering & majestic embezzler!

It may be

My object in writing this is not a malevolent one or a frivolous one. It is to protest, in all seriousness, against the removal of Mr. Duncan from his office, & against the diminution of his official powers—both the legitimate & usurped ones. Why? For the reason that where he is, he cannot injure more than six or eight thousand people a year, perhaps, & they only in their temporal affairs; whereas if he be turned out, he is the sort of man who would go to work laboring at once in Sunday schools, prayer meetings, revivals & missionary enterprises—anywhere, in fact, that he could make his regular stock in trade (religi (piety) pay a thousand per cent on his investments of it—& the result would be incalculable damage to the cause of religion. Are we calmly, coldly prepared to turn this desolation loose upon the land? Ce Can we deliberately do this thing & hope for peace of mind here or pardon hereafter? This is not a thing to be lightly cast aside as being nobody’s business; no, its is every man’s business who has the welfare of society & religion at heart. Do not think that I am over ◇ -wrought by my fears, for such is not the case. The peril is all that I paint it. I am calm,—I have—almost coldly calm. My motive is not selfish, I have nothing against Mr. Duncan—nothing whatever. I am commanded to love him, as well as all the world, & I do love him. And I believe that he loves me, & would die for me. Therefore, what I am saying is in the pure interest of society & religion. Are not temporal injuries less imporrtant than eternal ones? No one will deny that. Then once more I plead that Mr. Duncan may be retained in his present place to make it sultry for sailors & their families, & not turned loose upon the land nation to carry destruction & devastation to the far more vital & majestic interests of remainder of page torn away