SPECIAL REGULATIONS FOR EXAMINATIONS FOR MEN CLERKSHIPS IN THE LOWER DIVISION OF THE CIVIL SERVICE, AND FOR SECOND CLASS CLERKSHIPS IN THE INDIA OFFICE AND THE INDIA AUDIT OFFICE.

1. Competitive examinations of candidates for the above Clerkships will be held from time to time at such places as may be deemed expedient.

2. These examinations are open, under such general restrictions as may be laid down, to all natural-born subjects of Her Majesty, being of the prescribed age and of good health and character. The undermentioned restrictions are at present in force

I. The following classes of persons are ineligible, viz. :— (a) Persons actually serving in the Army or Navy.

II. The following classes of persons will not be eligible unless they shall have produced to the Civil Service Commissioners, before the date of the competition, the written permission of the authorities of their department to attend the examination, dated before the commencement of the competition, viz. (a) Persons holding situations in the Civil Service, (b) Members of the Royal Irish Constabulary of less than 12 years' service, (c) Apprentices and Engineer Students in Her Majesty's Dockyards.*

III. Persons who have been trained in normal schools at the public expense will not be qualified to receive appointments until the consent of the Committee of Council on Education, Great Britain, or the Commissioners of National Education, Ireland, as the case may be, given in conformity with rules sanctioned by the Lords of the Treasury, has been notified to the Civil Service Commissioners.

IV. In reckoning age for competition, and for removal from the list under Clause 8 of the Order in Council of the 12th February, 1876, the following allowances will be made, viz. :-1, Members of the Military and Naval Services (whether commissioned or non-commissioned) may deduct from their actual age any time during which they have served towards pension; 2, Persons who have served for two full consecutive years (a) in any Civil situation to which they were admitted with the certificate of the Civil Service Commissioners, (b) in the Royal Irish Constabulary, or (c) as Registered Copyists in connection with the Civil Service, may deduct from their actual age any time not exceeding five years which they may have spent in such service.

3. A fee of 10s. will be required from every candidate attending a Preliminary Examination, and a further fee of 10s. from every candidate admitted to the Competitive Examination.

4. Candidates must be over 17 and under 20 years of age on the first day of the Competitive Examination.

5. The subjects of examination will be as follows:

No candidate can be admitted to the competition who has not previously satisfied the Civil Service Commissioners that he possesses the requisite

* It is desirable that this permission should be produced at least one week before the date of the competition.

amount of proficiency in Handwriting, Orthography and Arithmetic (including Vulgar and Decimal fractions). 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.

6. The number of persons to be selected at such examination will be published as part of the notice of every such examination. A list of the competitors will be made out, in the order of merit, up to this published number, if so many are found by the examination to be qualified.

7. The successful candidates, if duly qualified, will be permitted to choose in their order as determined by the competitive examination whether they will be placed on the list for 2nd class Clerkships in the India Office, for 2nd class Clerkships in the India Audit Office, or on the list for the Lower Division of the Civil Service. No candidate will be qualified to be placed on the list for the Lower Division who has been placed on a similar list on the result of a previous examination.

The following Regulations, 8, 9, 10, apply only to candidates placed on the list for the Lower Division of the Civil Service.

8. Each competitor placed on the list for the Lower Division of the Civil Service will remain thereon until he attains the age of 25 years, unless in the meantime he has been appointed to a situation in some public office.

Candidates on completing their 25th year, or on receiving appointments, will be removed from the list.

9. From these lists the Civil Service Commissioners, on the application of departments having vacancies, will supply, on probation, the requisite Clerks, whether for temporary or permanent duty. Selections will, as a general rule, be made by the Civil Service Commissioners according to the order of the names on the lists; but the Civil Service Commissioners may select any Clerk who, in his examination, has shown special qualifications in any particular subject, if special application for such a Clerk be made by any department.

10. No Clerk will remain more than one year in any department, unless at the end of that time the head of that department shall signify in writing to the Civil Service Commissioners that the Clerk is accepted by the department. If he is not accepted, the department will report to the said Commissioners the reasons for not accepting him; and such Commissioners will thereon supply another Clerk in his room, and will decide whether the name of the rejected Clerk shall be struck off the lists, as unfit for the Service generally, or whether he shall be allowed a trial in another department.

It was thought that the lessened value of Lower Division appointments as compared with those of Class II. would cause a deterioration in the character and number of the competitors, and that a much smaller number of marks would be sufficient to ensure success. The experience of the last few years has proved this not to be so, and as time goes on the relative number of competitors increases. The difficulty is still further increased by the fact that in each competition there is a large residuum of fairly prepared candidates from the previous three or four competitions.

The total number of Men Clerks of the Lower Division who passed into the Service between the 12th February, 1876, and the 31st December, 1882, is 1,461. In addition to this number, 510 were admitted without examination under Clause VII. of the Order in Council of 4th June, 1870 (having previously to the 12th February, 1876, held Supplementary Clerkships or similar positions), or were appointed "exceptionally" under the provision of Clause XII.

of the Order in Council of 12th February, 1876. Of these a considerable number were taken, without examination, from the body of Writers serving before the 4th June, 1870, or were Writers subsequently registered, whose fitness for the Lower Division was tested by a supplementary examination.

In the following table are given the marks of the first six, and also the last six, successful competitors in a competition held in May, 1883, for 100 Men Clerkships of the Lower Division, and two Second class Clerkships in the India Office. The maximum number of marks for each subject is also stated.

Order

of

Merit.

Book-keeping.

Total.

Maximum. 300 100 400 400 200 200 200 200

The attention of successful candidates waiting for appointment may be drawn to No. 2 (a) of the Regulations for Temporary Copyists, by which they are enabled to accept temporary employment until their permanent engagement commences.

SPECIAL REGULATIONS FOR BOY CLERKSHIPS IN THE LOWER DIVISION OF THE CIVIL SERVICE.*

1. Competitive examinations of Candidates for Boy Clerkships in the Lower Division of the Civil Service will be held from time to time at such places as may be deemed expedient.

2. These examinations are open, under such general restrictions as may be laid down, to all natural-born subjects of Her Majesty, being of the prescribed age and of good health and character. The undermentioned restrictions are at present in force :

I. The following classes of persons are ineligible, viz.,
(a) Persons actually serving in the Army and Navy.

(b) Persons who have previously succeeded at an examination for the same situation or class of situations.

II. The following classes of persons will not be eligible unless they shall have produced to the Civil Service Commissioners, before the date of the competition, the written permission of the authorities of their departments to attend the examination: viz., (a) Persons holding situa

The Salaries of Boy Clerks begin at 148. per week, and rise by 1s. per week per annum as long as they are employed.

tions in the Civil Service, (b) Apprentices and engineer students in Her Majesty's dockyards.

III. Persons who have been trained in normal schools at the public expense will not be qualified to receive appointments until the consent of the Committee of Council on Education, Great Britain, or the Commissioners of National Education, Ireland, as the case may be, given in conformity with rules sanctioned by the Lords of the Treasury, has been notified to the Civil Service Commissioners.

3. A fee of 1s. will be required from every candidate admitted to the examination.

4. Candidates must be over 15 and under 17 years of age on the first day of the competitive examination.

5. The subjects of examination will be as follows:

1. Handwriting.

2. Orthography.

3. Arithmetic (including Vulgar and Decimal Fractions).

4. Copying MS. (to test accuracy). 5. English Composition.

6. Geography.

No candidate will be eligible who does not satisfy the Civil Service Commissioners of his competency in Handwriting, Orthography, and Arithmetic. The number of persons to be selected at each examination will be published as part of the notice of every such examination.

6. A list of the competitors will be made out, in the order of merit up to this published number, if so many are found by the examination to be qualified for appointments in the Civil Service.

7. Each competitor named in a list will remain thereon until he attains the age of 19 years, unless in the meantime he has been appointed to a situation in some public office. Boys on completing the 19th year of their age, or on receiving appointments, will be removed from the list.

8. From these lists the Civil Service Commissioners, on the application of departments having vacancies, will supply, on probation, the requisite Clerks, whether for permanent or temporary duty. Selections will, as a general rule, be made by the Civil Service Commissioners according to the order of the names on the list; but the Civil Service Commissioners may select any Clerk who, in his examination, has shown special qualifications in any particular subject, if special application for such a Clerk be made by any department.

9. No Clerk will remain more than one year in any department unless at the end of that time the head of that department shall signify in writing to the Civil Service Commissioners that the Clerk is accepted by the department. If he is not accepted, the department will report to the said Commissioners the reasons for not accepting him; and such Commissioners will thereupon supply another Clerk in his room and will decide whether the name of the rejected Clerk shall be struck off the lists, as unfit for the Service generally, or whether he shall be allowed a trial in another department.

10. Boy Clerks will not be retained as such in any department after completing their 19th year; but they may, after two years (or, if admitted after 17 years of age, one year) of good service, to be certified in writing by the head of their department to the Civil Service Commissioners, compete under Regulation II.," among themselves, for so many Men Clerkships of the Lower Division as shall not exceed one-fourth of the number of competitors.

Separate lists will be made out of the competitors successful in the limited competitions, and selections for appointments to Men Clerkships will (subject to Regulation 9) be made alternately from these lists and from the lists of competitors successful in the open competitions.

SPECIAL REGULATIONS FOR EXCISE AND ASSISTANT
SURVEYORSHIPS OF TAXES.

(A.) EXCISE.

1. The limits of age for this situation are 19 and 22.

Candidates must be

of the prescribed age on the first day of the month in which the examination is held.

2. Candidates must be unmarried and without family.

3. The examination will be in the following subjects, viz. :

5. Higher Arithmetic (including Mensuration,

Square and Cube Root, &c.)

400

6. Geography, especially that of the British Isles 400

4. A fee of £1 will be required from each candidate attending the examination.

5. Application for permission to attend an examination must be made at such time and in such manner as the Commissioners may appoint.

6. Each examination will have reference to such number of vacancies as may be specified in any notice of such examination published, with the approval of the Lords of the Treasury, in the London Gazette.

NOTE.-Second Class Assistants of Excise receive a salary of £60 per annum, with an additional allowance, when actively employed, of 2s. per day in Divisions and 3s. per day in Rides. They are eligible for promotion to higher situations.

Successful candidates for the Excise are allowed to accept temporary employment as Writers until their permanent engagement commences [see Regulations for Temporary Copyists, par. 2 (a)].

(B.) ASSISTANT SURVEYORS OF TAXES.

A further competition following each Excise Examination, and open to all candidates who have succeeded therein, will be held for the situation of Assistant Surveyors of Taxes, subject to the undermentioned condition, viz.— 1. The subjects of the Further Examination are,—

1. Translation from and into either French, German, or Latin.

2. First three books of Euclid.

3. Algebra, up to and including Quadratic Equations.

4. Book-keeping by Double Entry.

5. Political Economy (so far as relates to rates and taxes).

2. Candidates must pass in Book-keeping and in two at least of the subjects numbered 1, 2, 3, 5. The marks obtained in the examination for first entrance as Assistant of Excise will not be counted.

3. The greatest number of appointments which may be given on the result of any further competition will be the number estimated as likely to occur within six months from the date of the competition. This number will be stated at the commencement of the examination. These appointments will, as a rule, be given to the candidates highest in the list in order of merit, provided they shall have given proof, as Assistants of Excise, of their possessing the requisite practical qualification: but the Board of Inland Revenue are