The Daily Dispatch: December 13, 1865., [Electronic resource]

The writers from Washington represent that Capital as crowded to overflowing with applicants for office. They are, in general, willing to take anything they can get, from a foreign mission down to a pair of old breeches.

It has always been so at the commencement of every new Congress, and we suppose will always be so to the end of time. Office-seekers always abound in a Republic, and in this Republic, we suspect, above all others that ever existed.

There must be something supremely enchanting in the touch of public money. Men tell us that gold is gold, and silver is silver, no matter by whom paid, or for what service or purpose. It cannot be true; public money must be better than any other money, else why do we see so many men, well off in the world, leaving their farms, where they could live in ease and independence, to run in debt, and toil like galley slaves in the offices at Washington?

Of all situations in life, we should think that of a department clerk, with a family to rear and educate, the least desirable. And yet we see hundreds every year, with this encumbrance upon them, crowding to Washington to beg, cringe, bow, sue, do anything, for one of these clerkships. Among them are many men of talent, who either previously occupied, or could, by proper exertion, easily occupy, elevated positions among their friends and neighbors. It is incomprehensible. Public money must assuredly possess attractions that no other money can make any pretensions to.