OPEN COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS.

CLASS I.

The examination for appointments in this class is the most difficult of the Home Civil Service examinations. We should not advise any one to attempt it, unless he feels capable of competing with the candidates who come up from the Universities.

In the examination of March, 1877, out of ten successful candidates, six were from Oxford, two from Cambridge, one from Trinity College, Dublin, and only one was described as privately educated. In this examination however, there were offered two places of greater value than any that had been given previously, viz., two clerkships in the Colonial Office, commencing at £250 per annum. By the result of the examination in April last, two places of similar value were awarded; but, as a rule, the situations do not often exceed £150 a year to begin with, the majority of them beginning at £100 per annum.

The following are the regulations under which these examina, tions are held :

SPECIAL REGULATIONS

RESPECTING OPEN COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS for CLERKSHIPS (CLASS 1.) in the CIVIL SERVICE.

1. The limits of age for these situations are 18 and 24, and candidates must be of the prescribed age on the first day of the competitive examination.

2. At the competitive examinations exercises will be set in the following subjects only; the maximum of marks for each subject being fixed as follows; viz. :—

English Composition (including Précis.writing)
History of England-including that of the Laws and Con-
stitution

English Language and Literature

Language, Literature. and History of Greece

Rome
France

Germany

Italy

Marks.

500

500

500

750

750

375

375

375

1,250

1,000

Mathematics (pure and mixed)

Natural Science: that is, (1) Chemistry, including Heat; (2)
Electricity and Magnetism; (3) Geology and Mineralogy;
(4) Zoology; (5) Botany

* The Total (1.000) marks may be obtained by adequate pro-
ficiency in any two or more of the five branches of science
included under this head.

Moral Sciences: that is, Logic, Mental and Moral Philosophy 500
Jurisprudence

Political Economy

375

375

Candidates will be at liberty to offer themselves for examination in any or all of these subjects. No subjects are obligatory.

No candidate will be allowed any marks in respect of any subject of examination unless he shall be considered to possess a competent knowledge of that subject.

3. No candidate can be admitted to the competition who has not previously satisfied the Civil Service Commissioners that he possesses the requisite amount of proficiency in the following subjects:

1. Handwriting.

2. Orthography.

3. Arithmetic (to Vulgar and Decimal Fractions).

4. English Composition.

With this view, preliminary examinations in these subjects will be held at such times and places as the Commissioners may appoint.

Application for permission to attend one of these preliminary examinations must be made in the writing of the candidate, at such times and in such manner as may be fixed by the Commissioners.

4. A fee of £1 will be required from every candidate attending a preliminary examination, and a further fee of £5 from every candidate who may be admitted to the competition.

EXAMINATION FOR CLERKSHIPS (CLASS I.),
HELD IN JUNE, 1876.

NOTICES.-Every candidate is required to present himself punctually at the time specified in the time tables.

No candidate can be allowed to quit the examination room until he has given up the paper on which he is engaged.

Candidates are required to write their names at the top of every sheet of paper which they use.

Any Candidate who is dissatisfied with the pens, ink, or paper supplied to him, is requested to apply to one of the examiners; but those who are accustomed to use any particular kind of pen are recommended to bring it with them.

Cases having occurred in which candidates under examination have been detected in attempting to use books and manuscripts, which they had brought with them for their assistance, the Civil Service Commissioners think it right to give notice that they will regard any offence of this description, committed either in the examination room or elsewhere during the hours of examination, as effecting the moral character of the candidate, and as rendering it necessary that his certificate should be refused.

Any candidate copying from the papers of another, or permitting his own

* "Nothing can be further from our wish than to hold out premiums for knowledge of wide surface and small depth. We are of opinion that a candidate ought to be allowed no credit at all for taking up a subject in which he is a mere smatterer."-Report of Committee of 1854. A deduction of marks

will be made under each subject, including Mathematics.

papers to be copied, or receiving or giving assistance of any description, will expose himself to the same penalty.

The result of the examination will be communicated to each candidate by letter from this office.

* In these subjects there will be an Oral Examination, the time and place of which will be notified to the candidates who take them up.

PRECIS.

TIME ALLOWED, 3 HOURS.

Having read the accompanying correspondence-1. Make a short Abstract, Schedule, or Docket of the several letters and other papers.

2. Draw

up a Memorandum or Précis, i.e., a brief and clear statement of what passed, not letter by letter, but in the form of a narrative.

DIRECTIONS.

1. The object of the Abstract, Schedule, or Docket is to serve as an Index. It should contain the date of each letter; the names of the persons by whom and to whom it is written; and, in as few words as possible, the subject of it. The merits of such an Abstract are (1) to give the really important point or points of each letter, omitting everything else; (2) to do this briefly; (3) distinctly; and (4) in such a form as readily to catch the eye.

2. The object of the Memorandum or Précis which should be, not letter by letter, but in the form of a narrative, is that any one who had not time to read the original letters might, by reading the Précis, be put in possession of all the leading features of what passed. The merits of such a Précis are (1) to contain all that is important in the correspondence, and nothing that is unimportant; (2) to present this in a consecutive and readable shape, expressed as distinctly as possible; (3) to be as brief as is compatible with completeness and distinctness.

Brevity should be particularly studied.

The Abstract should occupy 1 or 2 pages only, or 3 at the most.
The Précis about 2 pages, or 3 at the most, of ordinary handwriting.

No. 3.

SIR H. ELLIOT to the EARL OF DERBY.

(Telegraphic.)

Therapia, Oct. 9th 1875, 3 p.m.

The following explanatory notice about the reduction of the rate of interest has been issued :

Translation.

Constantinople, Oct. 7th, 1875.

From this day's date, that is to say from the 6th October, 1875, and during a period of five years, the half of the interest and sinking fund of the internal and foreign debts, of which the annual amount comes to about £14,000,000, is and remains suppressed. As compensation for the non-payment of these £7,000,000, a sum shall be paid calculated at the rate of 5 per cent., of which sum the quota shall be £350,000 yearly.

The provisional bonds which shall be delivered for this object, shall hold good during five years only, and will be the security for the payment during each of these five years of the said sum exclusively of £350,000.

(Telegraphic.)

No. 4.

SIR H. ELLIOT TO THE EARL OF DERBY.

Therapia, October 10, 1875, 4 p.m. The following further official explanation has been issued respecting the reduction of the interest.

It differs very materially from the last :

(Translation.)

1. From this day's date the interest and sinking fund of the internal and external debts of the Ottoman Empire are reduced to one half during a term of five years.

2. The payment of these coupons will be made in the following manner :-The first half in cash integrally, and the second half in new bonds bearing 5 per cent. interest, payable likewise in cash, at the same time that the payment of the first half becomes due.

3. The securities assigned, as well for the entire payment in cash of the first half, as for the payment of the said 5 per cent. interest, consist in the total revenues of the customs, in those of tobacco and salt, as well as the tribute of Egypt, and, in case of insufficiency, it will be completed from the tax on sheep.

4. If at the expiration of the said five years the above-mentioned second half of the coupon, transformed into capital bearing 5 per cent. interest, should not be reimbursed, there will be a fresh extension of delay till the total extinction of the first foreign loan to be redeemed, he securities of which being then freed will serve for the integral repayment of the 5 per cent., including interest and sinking fund.

No. 5.

SIR H. ELLIOT to the EARL OF DERBY.

Therapia, October 7th, 1875.

MY LORD, I received last night the inclosed note from Safvet Pasha, transmitting the "Iradé " for the reduction of the interest on the debt.

A modification has been introduced into the first project of entire repudiation of half the interest.

The

According to the "Iradé," half the interest is to be paid in money, and the other half in bonds bearing interest at 5 per cent. revenues which are to be paid as security into the hands of the Syndicates to be appointed are those derived from the Customs, salt and tobacco, the Egyptian tribute, and if these are found insufficient, the sheep tax.

It is to be remarked that every one of these sources of revenue had already been assigned as securities for different foreign loans, and in some cases with the engagement that they should be paid to Syndicates. I pointed out both these circumstances when the project was first mentioned to me.

Whatever may have been the necessity or propriety of this act of repudiation, and, although opinion is divided, the majority of the local financial public appears to recognise it, little is to be said in favour of