ee Neer 
FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1884. 
COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 
Tue despatches from Washington recently 
contained the following paragraph: ‘‘ Owing 
to the failure of congress to appropriate the 
money asked for to publish the monthly pilot- 
chart issued from the hydrographic office, and 
to cover the expenses of the branch offices at 
the various ports of the Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts, orders were issued from the navy de- 
partment to-day to close those offices on the 
Ist of July next, and to discontinue the pub- 
lication of the pilot-chart after that date.’’ A 
disinterested observer might express regret at 
the necessity of economy so stringent as this, 
and surprise at so marked a sign of national 
poverty. His surprise would probably be in- 
creased, on reading further, in the news of the 
same day, the statement that it is proposed in 
congress, with much probability of success, to 
remove a former limitation of the pensions act, 
so as to make valid about fifty thousand claims 
filed for arrears of pensions, averaging twelve 
hundred dollars apiece, —a bill for sixty mil- 
lion dollars. An additional amount would be 
required to provide for similar claims, that would 
be filed in case this wholesale bill became a 
law; so that it would involve in the end the 
expenditure of over a hundred million dollars. 
We may well leave it to the economical 
politicians and political economists to decide 
whether so considerable a share of the sum 
lately reported to be in the treasury vaults 
should be expended on unexpected pensions. 
Jt is sufficient for our purpose simply to call 
attention to the fact that the possibility of the 
mere consideration of such a pensions-arrears 
bill is enough to convince any disinterested 
observer that true economy can have no share 
in the crippling of the work lately entered on 
by the hydrographic office. The failure to 
No. 69.— 1884. 
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vote appropriations for this work is a selfish 
economy, practised in a quarter where those 
in power hope it may not seriously affect them. 
The lavishness of the proposed pensions-arrears 
bill is a selfish generosity, arising less from 
regard for the pensioners than from desire for 
the votes they may control. On the basis of 
special appropriations, the hydrographic office 
undertook a task that has been well performed, 
bringing out valuable results, that have been 
well received ; and now, just as it is fully under 
way, an unfair and undeserved neglect requires 
its suspension. ‘There is neither propriety nor 
justice in such arbitrary action. 
It happens that a reduced copy, prepared 
several weeks ago, of one of the charts in 
question, appears in this number of Science, 
from which our readers may form some esti- 
mate of the care expended in its production, 
and of the value to nautical men of the great 
amount of timely information presented upon 
it. It is difficult to understand how a con- 
oress that is professedly desirous of reviving 
and encouraging our shipping interests can 
wish to discontinue the issue of a set of charts 
that contribute directly to the safety and suc- 
cess of our merchant marine; or to dis-estab- 
lish the branch hydrographic offices in several 
of our larger ports that furnish the most recent 
and trustworthy nautical information to mas- 
ters of vessels about embarking, and that 
gather in and preserve for the best future use 
the observations of those who have just come 
ashore from voyages across the seas. 
UNQUESTIONABLY, many of our agricultural 
publications deserve the severe censure which 
has been bestowed on them for diffuseness, and 
for a tendency to use padding to an unwarrant- 
able extent; but these two censurable faults 
are due to the exigencies of the case. Most 
of these publications are designed for the en- 
tertainment, or rather the improvement, of 
