“Bookkeeping is part of the instruction in our schools”, Mr. Forest answered, “and the bookkeeping in the public offices is not well done. So the responsibility, resting on the shoulders of the favorites of the members of the administration, does not harass the minds of these preferred people very much. It is, of course, impossible for an outsider to obtain an insight into the workings of the present administration, and to know how the books are kept. But when the late administration went out of office twelve years ago, an unfathomable pool of corruption was uncovered. An inventory of the goods on hand was taken, and it was stated that the books showed a shortage of more than four hundred and thirty-two million dollars. The members of the ousted administration declared this statement to be entirely false, that it had been “doctored” by the experts of the administration, for the purpose of casting discredit upon the members of the old government. The accused officers admitted that shortages were possible, for the reason, that all the clerks whose duty it was to measure goods, were inclined to give the people good weight and large measure, but that these shortages would not reach the figure of $432,000,000, and that the deficiency could not be considered as a proof of want of honesty on the part of the old officers. On the other hand, the new officers claimed, that the enormous shortages were due to the corruption of the members and prominent supporters of the ousted administration, who had always overdrawn their accounts, and had not been charged with the goods taken out in excess of their credit cards”. I asked Mr. Forest what he thought of these charges. “I think, they were to a large extent well founded. The temptation under our wretched system is too great. That the leaders should give to their relatives and next friends good positions would not be blameworthy, if the appointees were fit to fill the places given them. But the best places, numbering in all about twenty millions, are not filled with the best and most able men. They go, so far as they are not given to the relatives and friends of the leaders, to friends of the administration, in order to keep the latter in power. They are given to the sons and relatives and friends of the most active supporters of the government. And even this would be tolerable, if the favoritism stopped there, at the boundary of corruption and tyranny. But it does not”. “Are you accusing the present administration and all its friends of corruption and tyranny?” I asked, feeling that I should have to end my conversations with Mr. Forest, if he should make disparaging charges, even indirectly, against my host.