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 that in this respect even appearance creating suspicion must be regarded as hardly less dangerous than evil practice.

It is evident that in this respect hardly anything can be more questionable, more liable to an unfavorable interpretation than the suspensions of the rules in favor of, or for the benefit of, certain selected individuals. The appointing power will have to satisfy public opinion that the suspension of the rules has taken place in the public interest, and not in the interest of favored individuals. This is done, or intended to be done, by the official statement and publication of the reasons which have induced the appointing power to suspend the rules. To impart full credit to such statements it is important not only that they should, in fact, be candid and honest, but that they should be beyond reasonable doubt convincing as to their pertinency. How far this has been accomplished we may conclude from the records before us in the reports of the Civil Service Commission. It appears from those records that in several cases the rules were suspended for the purpose of securing the services of men peculiarly qualified for the discharge of certain special duties—their special qualification being attested either by the authority of learned bodies or by persons considered trustworthy, or by evidences of expert knowledge. The rest consists mostly of cases in which strict compliance with the rules did not seem quite convenient, and in cases in which persons, mostly ladies, who had left the service, were reinstated after the lapse of one year, during which, according to the rule, such reinstatement should be permissible without a re-examination. With suspensions of the rules of this class, personal sympathy had evidently more to do than the interest of the service. Indeed, considering the inevitable evil effects of suspensions of the civil service rules that are not absolutely necessary, the interest of the service was, as to this class of cases, decidedly on the other side.

Neither did the practice of suspending the rules prove itself reliable, in more important instances, in the appointment of better officers than could otherwise have been