administration of the New York custom-house, said:--

"The essential elements of a correct civil service I understand to be:
First, permanance in office, which, of course, prevents removals, except
for cause. Second, promotion from the lower to the higher grades, based
upon good conduct and efficiency. Third, prompt and thorough
investigation of all complaints and prompt punishment of all misconduct.
In this respect I challenge comparison with any department of the
Government, either under the present or under any past national
administration. I am prepared to demonstrate the truth of this statement
on any fair investigation."

Appended to this letter was a table in which General Arthur showed that
during the six years he had managed the office the yearly percentage of
removals for all causes had been only two and three-quarters per cent.
against an annual average of twenty-eight per cent. under his three
immediate predecessors, and an annual average of about twenty-four per
cent. since 1857, when Collector Schell took office. Out of nine hundred
and twenty-three persons who held office when he became collector on
December 1, 1871, there were five hundred and thirty-one still in office
on May 1, 1877, having been retained during his entire term. Concerning
promotions, the statistics of the office show that during his entire
term the uniform practice was to advance men from the lower to the
higher grades, and almost without exception on the recommendation of
heads of departments. All the appointments, excepting two, to the one
hundred positions paying two thousand dollars salary a year, and over,
were made on this method.

Senator George K. Edmunds, at a ratification meeting, held in
Burlington, Vermont, on the twenty-second of June, 1880, said:--