Of the forty-five ladies in the Internal Revenue Bureau, there is but one, and she fifty years of age, who has not more than herself to support on the pittance which she is paid. Nevertheless, whenever a spasmodic cry of “retrenchment” is raised, three women are always dismissed from office, to one man, although the men so greatly outnumber the women, to say nothing of their being so much more expensive.
“One of the greatest advocates of economy took work from a woman whose pay was the invariable nine hundred dollars per year, to give it to a man, who received for doing it, sixteen hundred dollars. No complaint was made of her manner of doing the work, but the head of the division said that she could count money, and he had not enough work for the men. Nothing was said of dismissing the superfluous male clerks. The work given the manly mind, in this instance, was the entering of dates of redemption opposite the numbers of redeemed notes. A child of ten years could scarcely have blundered at it. The same date was written sometimes for two weeks at a time.”
The lady at the head of the woman’s division of the Internal Revenue Bureau, has filled the position, with marked efficiency, for ten years, and upon the adoption of the new Civil Service Rules, she was authorized to receive eighteen hundred dollars per annum.
The lady who is one of the librarians of the library of the Treasury, is an accomplished linguist, a very intellectual woman. She was appointed by Mr. Boutwell, and received sixteen hundred dollars.
There are some very important desks filled by ladies in the Fifth Auditor’s office. Into their hands come all consular reports. To fulfil their duties efficiently, they must possess a knowledge of banking, as well as of mathematics.
Before the Civil Service Rules were vetoed, several ladies competed in one, two, and three examinations. Thus several won, by pure intellectual test, twelve hundred dollars, sixteen hundred dollars, eighteen hundred dollars, and one or two, I believe, a twenty-two hundred dollars position.
In the office of the Comptroller of the Treasury, are some very important desks filled by ladies. One young lady in this office has charge of the correspondence with the national banks and engraving companies. This involves a complicated routine. The desk was formerly filled by a man who received fourteen hundred dollars. It was taken from him because he was two hundred letters behind date. The work which has been in charge of this lady for six or seven years, at nine hundred dollars per annum, is always even with the day.
Another young lady, in this office, prepares an abstract of the circulation issued and returned by national banks, by means of which an immediate answer can be given, when information is asked, as to the outstanding circulation of any particular bank. Another laborious task, performed in this office by a lady, is the preparation of an abstract of the number of notes of each denomination and issue, work requiring great intellectual exactness and care.
In the Post Office Department, there are forty-seven women who address “returned letters,” i. e., letters which have miscarried, and which are to be returned, if the signature, or anything inside the letter, gives a clue to whom it is to be sent. There are ten women who fold “dead letters,” and three who translate foreign letters.
The lady in charge of the women clerks in the Dead-Letter[Dead-Letter] Office, is the daughter of an officer high in rank in the army, now dead. Her grandfather was the President of a New England college. Mrs. Pettigru King, whose father was the Governor of South Carolina, and a member of the United States Senate, herself a woman of remarkable talents, was long employed in the Dead-Letter Office. Sitting among many younger women, her hands flying as swift as any of theirs—the daily task, that of re-directing two hundred letters, usually completed by her before that of any one else—we see a fair, round-faced, blue-eyed woman, whose sudden, bright glance and rapid movements at once fix our attention. She looks to be about fifty; she is in reality over seventy years of age. She and her history combined, probably make as remarkable a fact as the Dead-Letter Office contains. She is the widow of a clergyman. When the war broke out, her only son became hopelessly insane. “As he could not go to the war, I went myself,” she said. As the Assistant-Manager of the United States Sanitary Committee for an entire State,[State,] she raised, in money, ten thousand dollars, and collected and distributed ninety thousand hospital articles. She was in the field, in the hospital, and travelling between certain large cities, till the close of the war. Just as she finished her great work, she fell and broke one of her limbs. This confined her to her room for six months. In the meantime, her daughter’s husband died, leaving her with three little children, and no income. Soon after, the mother lost what little she had, and the entire family were left penniless. After an unsuccessful attempt at the widow’s forlorn hope, “keeping boarders,” mother and daughter came to Washington, and sought for positions in the Departments. “Friends tried to dissuade us,” said the old lady. “They told us that we must not come here, to mingle with such people as they thought were in the Departments. We have not seen them. I have been three years in the Post Office Department, and my daughter in the Treasury, and we have met none but respectable women.”