day, she modestly insisted on “her husband’s being a clerk under one of them.” The President told her, “that he had nothing to do with such appointments, which he left to the Secretaries to make.” It seems, from the best information I could obtain, that women, belonging to this District, and parts of Maryland and Virginia near Washington, come here, constantly soliciting offices for their sons, husbands and other relatives. That they have often succeeded, is evident enough to the public injury, and to the injury of the public officers themselves. Were the same rules adopted now, that Jefferson and Madison adhered to formerly, a vast deal of personal inconvenience to the President would be avoided. The Presidents, to whom I have referred, required that all applications for offices should be made in writing. If the office was derived from the President and Senate, the application had to be made to the President; but if the office applied for came from a Secretary, then he only was addressed, but it must be in writing. A story has been for some time past running around the whole Union, during the last year, in relation to the appointment of a clerk. The tale itself is derived, we presume, from some officer here, yet is doubtless wholly untrue. Could that officer be believed, a woman, residing in or near the District, frequently called to see the President, in order to get her husband appointed a clerk. After many vain attempts to accomplish her wishes, she is represented as having succeeded at last by informing the Chief Magistrate, “that her husband was entirely helpless in his bed from sickness, and that she and her children must come to want unless her husband was appointed a clerk!”