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Civil service   /sˈɪvəl sˈərvəs/   Listen
Civil service

noun
1.
Government workers; usually hired on the basis of competitive examinations.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Civil service" Quotes from Famous Books



... African Coast at the age of twenty, a privateersman during the last war with England, the commander of a fire-ship and its sole survivor at twenty-five, with a wild intermediate career of unmixed piracy, until the Rebellion called him to civil service again as a blockade-runner, and peace and a desire for rural repose led him to seek the janitorship of the Doemville Academy, where no questions were asked and references not exchanged: he was, indeed, a fit mentor for ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... adversaries silenced or scattered, his popularity generally lasted until the spoils were distributed. ("To the victors belong the spoils" was the policy of the past; the American military authorities are making an important innovation by the introduction of civil service principles for selecting public employees.) The disappointed spirits immediately entered into the plots which the vanquished opponents were not slow in fomenting. The leader of the adverse party or one of his trusted ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... started. "Oh," said he with some confusion, "I have no immediate plans. Yes, I have: don't you know I have been cramming for the civil service ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... accident in the sense of a mishap. Not in the least. Fyne was a good little man in the Civil Service. By accident I mean that which happens blindly and without intelligent design. That's generally the way a brother-in-law happens into a ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... you one," said Delme, interrupting her. "Do you recollect old Featherstone, who had been in the civil service in India, and who lived ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... for anxiety. He was carefully attended to by Doctor Kelly, the surgeon of the Guides, who had accompanied the mission as medical officer. The escort was commanded by Lieutenant Hamilton; and Sir Lewis Cavagnari was accompanied by Mr. William Jenkyns, of the Indian Civil Service, as his secretary. The care of Doctor Kelly, and the influence of quinine and tonics quickly added to Will's strength; but his best medicine was the sound of English voices, and the kindness which was shown to him. In a fortnight he was able to get about, as usual; and the doctor said that, ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... in time for tea—a stroke of luck—with a company of boys (all Kitchener lads from the Civil Service) who were spending the night here. They had made a fire behind a screen to give them a little comfort and frighten off the ghosts, and gossiped with a queer sense of humor, cynical and blasphemous, but even through their jokes there was a yearning for the end of a business ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... humble friend, and who he was convinced was destined to be Prime Minister of England. Mr. Rodney was the son of the office-keeper of old Mr. Ferrars, and it was the ambition of the father that his son, for whom he had secured a sound education, should become a member of the civil service. It had become an apothegm in the Ferrars family that something must be done for Rodney, and whenever the apparent occasion failed, which was not unfrequent, old Mr. Ferrars used always to add, "Never mind; so long as I live, Rodney shall never want a home." The object of all this ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... greatly disproportionate number of men. One does not assert for a moment that the men should not go, but merely that if they do, so should women also. As everyone knows they go for many reasons and purposes. These are largely industrial and imperial. The Civil Service claims a large number. These bachelors go in the cause of Empire, whether as actual servants of the State or in the interests of commerce. They are largely picked men, capable of discipline and initiative and of withstanding ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... through the competitive civil service examinations. Examinations are held at more or less irregular intervals, usually several times a year, in various sections of the country. A letter addressed to the United States Civil Service Commission will secure the necessary information concerning openings and ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... quickly back was one of the heads of the Civil Service. The man at the flat-topped desk was Colonel Stopford. The man on a chair beside him was one of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... Company. He received his appointment in 1792, the year of the birth of Shelley. He had been trained at Christ's Hospital for a university career; this gave him a good classical education but not especially good preparation for his new work. Had he been obliged to pass a civil service examination he would hardly have received the appointment. Of geography and arithmetic he knew little. The schoolboy of to-day will be surprised to learn that a boy a hundred and more years ago might reach the age of fifteen ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... emolument have been obtained through influential friends, but to dismiss public servants who are doing useful work, for no better reason than simply to make room for others, is very bad for the civil service, and for the country it serves. Attempts to remedy these evils have been made within recent years by the introduction of what is called "Civil Service Reform", by which a candidate is appointed ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... are extensively followed through other grades of society. Merchants, bankers, and manufacturers—all rich men of the commercial and industrial classes—are educating students. Military officers, civil service officials, physicians, lawyers, men of every profession, in short, are doing the same thing. Persons whose incomes are too small to permit of much generosity are able to help students by employing them as door-keepers, messengers, tutors,—giving them board ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... organisation of human society is dual. Man is at once a unique being and a gregarious animal. For some purposes he must be collectivist, for others he is, and he will for all time remain, an individualist. Collectively we have an Army and a Navy and a Civil Service; collectively we have a Post Office, and a police, and a Government; collectively we light our streets and supply ourselves with water; collectively we indulge increasingly in all the necessities of communication. But we do not make love collectively, and the ladies do not marry us collectively, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... considered the question, and has decided to act upon my advice. Mind you don't tell anyone - it is a profound secret,' then, lowering his voice and looking round the room, 'His Excellency has consented to score at the next cricket match between the garrison and the Civil Service.' If it were a constabulary appointment, or even a village post-office, the Attorney or the Solicitor- General would be strictly enjoined not to inform me, and I received similar injunctions respecting ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... attempted to deal with this subject have simply regarded the state as the greatest employer of labor, carrying on its business upon lines not materially different from those adopted by the great corporations of to-day. Boards of experts, chosen by civil service methods, directing all the economic activities of the state—such is their general conception of the industrial democracy of the Socialist regime. They believe, in other words, that the methods now employed by the capitalist state, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... lessons from the Rev. and Mrs. Westphal. At the age of sixteen he joined the Cape Government service as letter-carrier in the Kimberley Post Office. There he studied languages in his spare time, and passed the Cape Civil Service examination in typewriting, Dutch and native languages, heading the list of successful candidates in each subject. Shortly before the war he was transferred to Mafeking as interpreter, and during the siege was appointed Dutch interpreter to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... in 1823, he was the son of a lawyer doing business among the Moscow tradesmen. After finishing his course at the gymnasium and spending three years at the University of Moscow, he entered the civil service in 1843 as an employee of the Court of Conscience in Moscow, from which he transferred two years later to the Court of Commerce, where he continued until he was discharged from the service in 1851. Hence both ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... Nigeria as evidenced by decreased reexport trade in 1994 due to a severe contraction in Nigerian demand. Support by the Paris Club and official bilateral creditors has eased the external debt situation in recent years. The government, still burdened with money-losing state enterprises and a bloated civil service, has been gradually implementing a World Bank supported structural ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the age of fifteen he served as page in the Indiana Legislature, being the first colored boy so appointed. After attaining his majority he became a clerk in the Marion County Auditor's office, and in 1888 he led a class of seventy-five in a civil service examination, earning an appointment as letter carrier. He came to Washington in 1894 and was appointed clerk in the counting division of the Government Printing Office, enjoying the distinction of being the first colored man to be ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... full of boys and girls, now scattered in the English fashion to all parts of the world. There was Ralph with his regiment in India,—he was the heir, it seemed,—and Jim and Jack in Australia, and Oliver with his wife and children in New Zealand, and Allen at Harrow, and another boy fitting for the civil service. There was a married sister in Scotland, and another in London; and Isabel, the youngest of all, still at home,—the light of the house, and the special pet of the old squire and of Geoff's mother, who, he told Clover, had been a great beauty in her youth, and though nearly seventy, was ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... reminds me of Peter Wilson, him that passed into the Civil Service and gaed to London. He came hame onexpectedly wan mornin' and his father he says: 'What in a' the earth brocht ye hame in the month o' February, Peter? Surely ye dinna hae a holiday ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... the administration. They are divided into two parts, the consolidated fund services and the supply services, the first comprising the civil list, debt charge, pensions and courts of justice, while the "supply" includes the remaining expenditure of the country, as the army, the navy, the civil service and revenue departments, the post-office and telegraph services. The consolidated fund services are an annual charge, fixed by statute, and alterable only by statute, but the supply services may be gone through in detail, item by item, by the House of Commons, which forms itself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... a Reno boy through and through, and although his middle name is Cross, it certainly has nothing to do with his disposition, for he is most entertaining and genial. As a youth he attended the High School and the University, after a time taking the civil service. Then in the service of the railroad proper, he wandered around the coast ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... is larger than the conservatives. The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer. You find him desperately numerous in the civil service, in the official bureaus. To him government is something given as unconditionally, as absolutely as ocean or hill. He goes on winding the tape that he finds. His imagination has rarely extricated itself from under the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... in India, that life in the Dominions is a very inadequate education for the sympathetic handling of alien races and customs. So is life in many parts of this island. The fact is that the process of learning to govern these alien peoples is the best education in the world. The Indian Civil Service is a great College, and it governs India. I can speak to this point, for I have lived there and seen it at work. If India were really governed by the ideas of the young novices who go out there fresh from their examinations, she would be a distressful country. ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... solid measure of reform and one from which we dare depart only at our peril, would probably be called into use and be evaded in exactly the same way as it has been in the past. And even if it were not evaded, we must remember that the Civil Service examinations and rules are not a guarantee of efficiency or excellence. The best that can be said for them is that they are a protection against absolute incompetence and, to a certain extent, against ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers

... brains that matter nowadays—it's money. What do you get by brains? A civil service appointment—and a pension of seven hundred a year. What's the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... own period of misgovernment when all the large cities were subject to "ring rule" and corruption, as in New York under "Boss" Tweed and in the District of Columbia under "Boss" Shepherd. The Federal civil service was discredited by the scandals connected with the Sanborn contracts, the Whisky Ring, and the Star Routes, while some leaders in Congress were under a cloud from the "Salary ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... was born on April 29, 1803. His father was a member of the Civil Service of the East India Company, and spent a great many years in India. He followed his father's example, and entered the Company's service, and was sent out to India in 1825. Not long after his arrival, he was put in command ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes

... been left behind as not being adapted to mountain work. When they stepped out on a little plateau they found themselves looking into the muzzles of six automatic revolvers, held in the hands of the civil service men and Nestor. ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... cooperation embodied in the Social Security Act.[295] A decade later the right of Congress to impose conditions upon grants-in-aid over the objection of a State was squarely presented in Oklahoma v. United States Civil Service Commission.[296] The State objected to the enforcement of a provision of the Hatch Act,[297] whereby its right to receive federal highway funds would be diminished in consequence of its failure to remove from office a member ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... last the county member, at the request of her father, obtained for me a clerkship in the Stamps and Taxes Department. These were the days before competitive examinations. She was now able to say that her son was in H. M. Civil Service. I had eighty pounds a year, and lodged at Clapton with an aunt, ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... a half-conscious acceptance of a partially independent Civil Service as an existing fact is not enough. We must set ourselves to realise clearly what we intend our officials to do, and to consider how far our present modes of appointment, and especially our present methods of organising official work, provide the most effective means for ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... there, possibly an Executive Membership of the Council. Or do you want an expansion of the Legislative Councils? Do you want that a few Indians shall sit as your representatives in the House of Commons? Do you want a large number of Indians in the Civil Service? Let us see whether 50, 100, 200, or 300 civilians will make the Government our own.... The whole Civil Service might be Indian, but the Civil servants have to carry out orders—they cannot direct, they cannot dictate ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... Ideas. Civil Service Reform. Perfecting of Party Organization in the Country. Jackson and the United States Bank. His Popularity. Revival of West Indian Trade. French Spoliation Claims. Paid. Our Gold and Silver Coinage. Gold Bill. Increased Circulation ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... offshore oil resources, Cameroon has one of the highest incomes per capita in tropical Africa. Still, it faces many of the serious problems facing other underdeveloped countries, such as political instability, a top-heavy civil service, and a generally unfavorable climate for business enterprise. The development of the oil sector led rapid economic growth between 1970 and 1985. Growth came to an abrupt halt in 1986 precipitated by ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... present postmaster, in any personal sense, and would say nothing against him except merely that he was utterly and hopelessly unfit for his job and that if Drone believed, as he had said he did, in a purified civil service, he ought to ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... Blake of the Indian Civil Service, Sessions Judge of Duri, was thrown from his trap and killed. It happened five minutes after he had said to me, with a queer look in his eyes, and a queer note in his voice, "Man! you and I are fey".... So it is no hallucination and I am haunted by Burker's ghost. Very ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... promising of all is the fact that the time-honored method of restricting education to the ethical dogmas of Confucius has been overthrown and modern science is being taught in the schools and made part of the requirements of the annual examinations for positions in the civil service of the empire. A new race of scholars is being made in China, one which cannot fail to use its influence to bring that old empire into the swing ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... the perplexed husband, "still, I can't help thinking about what is to be done after he has had the good education. You know I have no relation in the world except brother Richard, who is as poor as myself. We have no influential friends to help him into the Army or the Navy or the Indian Civil Service; and the Church, you know, is not suitable for an imp. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne

... boy," said Goneril, "and very clever; he is going home for the Indian Civil Service Exam; he has been out to Calcutta to ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... controlling turbulent semi-tropical dependencies, the agents we choose cannot be the ward heelers of the local bosses. Now, if ever, is the time to rally the brain and conscience of the American people to a real elevation and purification of their Civil Service, to the most exalted standards of public duty, to the most strenuous and united effort of all men of good will to make our Government worthy of the new and great responsibilities which the Providence of God rather than any purpose of man has imposed ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... led a busy life. He was a good business man, and soon we find him in the civil service, as we would call it now. He was made Comptroller of Customs, and in this post he had to work hard, for one of the conditions was that he must write out the accounts with his own hand, and always be in the office himself. If we may take some lines ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... their presence was unknown. He will see the policeman on the beat neglect the broken lock of my house door that haply he may learn something of the doings of his fellow constable. He will see a whole civil service turned into a bureau of information, a department of espionage. He will see the entire machinery of city government made ineffectual in the ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... measures, Austria has brought its total public sector deficit down to 2.1% of GDP in 1999 and public debt - at 63.1% of GDP in 1998 - more or less in line with the 60% of GDP required by the EMU's Maastricht criteria. Cuts mainly have affected the civil service and Austria's generous social benefit system, the two major causes of the government's deficit. To meet increased competition from both EU and Central European countries, Austria will need to emphasize ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the "working machine" of government there are two distinct elements. First, there is the large, permanent, professional staff, the Civil Service; secondly, there is the policy-directing body, the Cabinet. Both of these are the objects of a great deal of contemporary criticism. On the one hand, we are told that we are suffering from "bureaucracy," which means that the permanent officials ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... was sober when he did it—anyhow he had not taken drink for a week. A man is never sober who gets drunk more than once a week, though he might think he is. I don't know how it happened, but anyway he struck her, and that frightened him. He got a billet in the Civil Service up-country. No matter in what town it was. The little wife hoped for ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... transit between Harlem and the Battery; and his consent to desired legislation on such points can very likely be obtained only by favouring some measure which he thinks will improve the value of his farm, or perhaps by helping him to debauch the civil service by getting some neighbour appointed to a position for which he is not qualified. All this is made worse by the fact that the members of a state government are generally less governed by a sense of responsibility toward the citizens of a particular city than even the worst local government ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... as an Indian romance, there is another story which renders Indian life and manners with equal fidelity. Pandurang Hari was written by a member of the Indian Civil Service, and first published in 1826, though it reappeared in 1874, with a preface by Sir Bartle Frere. Here again the scene is in Western India, among the Marathas; but the period belongs to the first quarter of this century. It ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... recognise me, what would she say, poor woman? Perhaps, though, she would not notice my shoes at all, since it may reasonably be supposed that countesses do not greatly occupy themselves with footgear, especially with the footgear of civil service officials (footgear may differ from footgear, it must be remembered). Besides, I should find that the countess had heard all about me, for my friends would have betrayed me to her—Rataziaev among the ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... State, and they were fond of claiming that there was no such writer on any of the Indianapolis papers. They forgave some political heresies to the talent they admired; they permitted him the whim of free trade, they laughed tolerantly when he came out in favour of civil service reform, and no one had much fault to find when the Democrat-Republican bolted the nomination of a certain politician of its party for Congress. But when Colville permitted his own name to be used by the opposing party, the people arose in their might and defeated him by ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... sought to impose on our national political system were by way of being destructive. They uprooted a national institution which had existed, with but one brief interruption, for more than forty years; and they entirely altered the tradition of appointment in the American civil service. Both of these destructive achievements throw a great deal of light upon their unconscious tendencies and upon their explicit convictions, and will help us to understand the value and the limitation of the positive contribution which the pioneers made to the ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... they were reared. Ausonius and Sidonius and their friends were highly educated men and Gaul was famous for its schools and universities. The education which these gave consisted in the study of grammar and rhetoric, which was necessary alike for the civil service and for polite society; and it would be difficult to imagine an education more entirely out of touch with contemporary life, or less suited to inculcate the qualities which might have enabled men ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... the house to receive their transparency, adorned on one side with a villainous portrait of myself superscribed by the motto, "Our Fathers Fought For Freedom, We Are Fighting For The Right," and on the other a cut depicting the rival candidate up to his armpits in the bog of Civil Service Reform, described as "Spinney's Walk-Over" (a happy blending, as Nick called it, of serious principle and humorous suggestion), I appeared on the door-steps and delivered a few halting sentences of gratitude and augury for success, which were received with loud plaudits ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... Civil Service regulations which tied his hands, and left him only one thing to say: ...
— Take the Reason Prisoner • John Joseph McGuire

... the other would certainly have to return to his disconsolate family at the very next offence. There was a question at this very moment whether Geraghty, who had come from the sister island about twelve months since, should not be returned to King's County. No doubt he had passed the Civil Service examiners with distinguished applause; but Aeolus hated the young Crichtons who came to him with full marks, and had declared that Geraghty, though no doubt a linguist, a philosopher, and a mathematician, was not worth his salt as a Post Office clerk. But he, and Bobbin also, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... 26. Tenure of future judges. 27. As to existing judges and other persons having salaries charged on the Consolidated Fund. 28. As to persons holding civil service appointments. 29. As to ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... others. The task of the annotator has, of course, been made easier of late years by the publication of contemporary journals and letters, and of useful works of reference dealing with Parliament, the Army, the Church, the Civil Service, and the like, besides the invaluable Dictionary of National Biography. I have also been assisted by a collection of MS. notes kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Thomas Seccombe. I have aimed at brevity and relevance, but it is hoped that the reader will find ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... now is in politics, it would be ten times more dangerous if under a system of Government management considerations of self-interest should induce a million railroad employes to act as a political unit and political parties should vie with each other in bidding for the railroad vote. Could our civil service ever be so organized as to divest it entirely of political power, state management of railroads might still offer the best solution ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... the Civil Service, which has been a solid measure of reform and one from which we dare depart only at our peril, would probably be called into use and be evaded in exactly the same way as it has been in the past. And even if it were not ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers

... wrote the recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me—though my family, with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of Hindustani from generation to generation—and none are absolutely plain sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and sat on the floor by my safe for some time looking ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... leading on to labour and struggle, he instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom. In this way he experimented with society-life, the civil service, farming, music—to which at one time he intended to devote his life—and even with the love of women in which he did not believe. He meditated on the use to which he should devote that power of youth ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... from the waist-coat button to one pocket only, instead of right across, and one finger wore a heavy signet-ring that bore the family crest. It was obviously the figure of an overworked official in the Civil Service who had returned from its daily routine in London to the evening routine of its family in the country, the atmosphere of Government and the Underground still hanging round it. For sundry whiffs of the mysterious city reached the children's nostrils, bringing thrills ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... would be as invidious as it would be vain—there were a lot of hybrids. But it was not military men within the War Office alone who suffered considerable disillusionment on being brought into contact with the Man of Business in the aggregate; that was also the experience of the Civil Service in general. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... that the method of making men officials for life is quite the worst way of getting official duties done. Officialdom is a species of incompetence. This rather priggish, teachable, and well-behaved sort of boy, who is attracted by the prospect of assured income and a pension to win his way into the Civil Service, and who then by varied assiduities rises to a sort of timidly vindictive importance, is the last person to whom we would willingly entrust the vital interests of a nation. We want people who know ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... up. He felt suddenly frightened; it seemed as though all the people in the boxes were looking at them. She got up and went quickly to the door; he followed her, and both walked senselessly along passages, and up and down stairs, and figures in legal, scholastic, and civil service uniforms, all wearing badges, flitted before their eyes. They caught glimpses of ladies, of fur coats hanging on pegs; the draughts blew on them, bringing a smell of stale tobacco. And Gurov, whose heart was beating ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Calcutta, where he lodged his unfortunate family. They had a great deal of illness, and he was able to do little but study the language and endeavour to translate the Bible into Bengalee. Several moves made their state rather worse than better, until, in 1795, a gentleman in the Civil Service, Mr. George Udney, offered Carey the superintendence of an indigo factory of his own at Mudnabutty, where he hoped both to obtain a maintenance, and to have great opportunities of teaching ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... box-wallahs. It seems very strange that there should be such a desire to go one better than one's neighbour, to have better horses, a smarter carriage, a larger house, smarter gowns, because, at least in the case of the Civil Service people, their income is known down ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... now finished at the University, and ought to choose a career; but his father says nothing about it. He wanted to take a post in the Civil Service, but Nicholas Ivnovich says he ought not to do so. Then he thought of entering the Horse-Guards, but Nicholas Ivnovich quite disapproved. Then the lad asked his father: "What am I to do then—not go and plough after all?" and Nicholas Ivnovich said: "Why not plough? ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... knowledge, combined with rare faculties of delineation, could furnish, and differs in many features from any other to be found in European descriptions of life in India. "Meadows Taylor was never, properly speaking, in the civil service of the East India Company or the Crown, nor did he hold any military appointment in the British Indian army. He was throughout life an officer of the Nizam. He never even visited Calcutta or Bengal." He was thus thrown out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... the top of an omnibus, one may be sure. And she imbibes facts from The Civil Service Geography all the way. I found the book in her bag yesterday. I believe she wants to get into the Post Office eventually. It ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke

... among nations—all his very own. Wherefore the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys took another step in advance, and with it counsel of those who should have advised him on the appointment of a successor to Yardley- Orde. There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... Civil Service shall be completely reorganised, and all corrupt officials shall be dismissed from office, and be ineligible for ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... was not till the 19th century that the system developed universally. Hitherto consuls had, for the most part, been business men with no special qualification as regards training; but the French system, under which the consular service had been long established as part of the general civil service of the country, a system that had survived the Revolution unchanged, was gradually adopted by other nations; though, as in France, consuls not belonging to the regular service, and having an inferior status, continued to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... mare's tail in plaits, now ain't she lookin' gay? With ribbons in 'er mane as well—you'd think it First o' May; For why? we're under Government, though it ain't just plain to me If we're in the Civil Service or the Admiralitee. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... sentiment. I must remember to notice whether 'C. E.' is carved about the forest. He will pretend to hold back; but I will get it out of him.—I made this pause long enough to let him prepare for the examination on which depends his admission into the civil service, so to speak—he will have to be more civil and serviceable than hitherto if he is to pass it, and follow me back to town—and indeed ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... than a month ago, so we came at once. I'll forestall the further inquiry I see on your lips, and tell you why I came so promptly. My brother Robert was the wealthy member of the family, and I was the poor one—a poor devil of an Anglo-Indian with nothing on this side of the grave but a niggardly Civil Service pension! ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... have passed since the Conference of 1861, have witnessed singular vicissitudes among its members. Many of them have entered into the military or civil service of the country, or of the rebellion which it was the avowed purpose of some members of that Conference to nourish into vigorous life. Death, also, has been busy with the roll. BALDWIN, BRONSON, SMITH, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... private life is much better uninquired into. He was a mighty builder and splendid adorner of cities; all that remained unsystematized in the Augustan system, he reduced to perfect system and order. His laws were excellent and humane; he introduced a special training for the Civil Service, which wrought enormous economies in public affairs: officials were no longer to obtain their posts by imperial appointment, which might be wise or not, but because of their own tested efficiency for the work.—Then came the golden twenty-three ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... everything before it. Before he had attained his nineteenth year he had astonished all the professors in Edinburgh by his profound knowledge of Greek and Latin, and the general mass of information he had acquired. Having turned his views to India, he sought employment in the civil service, but failed. He was however informed that a surgeon's assistant's commission was open to him. But he was no surgeon, and knew no more of the profession than a child. He could however learn. Then he was told that he must be ready to pass in six months! Nothing daunted, he set to work, to acquire ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... great a loss to his nephew, now turned of eighteen—a likely youth, of course well connected, and now his uncle's heir. Caius Pliny went through the steps of the civil service with credit to himself, though his advancement was checked during Domitian's reign. He was indeed a consul, but then many consuls were appointed during the year. But it was much more prudent for him to keep ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... Lodge entered public life the flagrant spoils system was rampant. A little band of earnest men was fighting to reform the civil service so as to make it a permanent establishment with merit and fitness the tests for appointment instead of political influence. It was a cause naturally to appeal to the "best people" of Boston, and Mr. Lodge, ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... Protectorate. He continued to serve under Richard, writing eleven letters between September, 1658, and February, 1659. With two letters for the restored Parliament after Richard's abdication, written in May, 1659, Milton, though his formal supersession was yet to come, virtually bade adieu to the Civil Service:— ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... long he found employment addressing envelopes for a mailing firm, at which his fine and rapid penmanship secured him steady work; and in a few months he asked his employers to indorse his application for a Civil Service examination. The favor was granted, the examination easily passed, and he addressed envelopes while he waited. Meanwhile he bought new and better clothing and seemed to have no difficulty in impressing those whom he met with the fact that he ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... cabin passengers were not Army people. Some belonged to the postals service, the islands civil service, or were planters or merchants of wealth and influence in the islands, who had been permitted to take ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... alike magnificent, and their valour beyond words. The Cockney makes the perfect soldier.' I wrote at the time that 'whether the men came from Bermondsey, Camberwell or Kennington, or belonged to what were known as class corps, such as the Civil Service or Kensingtons, before the war, all battalions were equally good. They were trained for months for the big battle till their bodies were brought to such a state of fitness that Spartan fare during ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... represented by members of the nobility and by such high officials in the army, navy, and civil service as mix with that nobility. Of course there are sets just as there are everywhere else, sets as delightful to those who are in them as they are distasteful to outsiders; but talent and money frequently succeed in making serious inroads upon the preserves of noble birth. This is, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... civil service at Washington there are several colored men who have made inventions of more or less importance which were suggested by the mechanical problems ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker

... gift horse in the mouth, if you are prudent enough to do it on the sly? Besides, don't everybody look in the horse's mouth, as soon as the giver has departed? Suppose you're patriotic, and offer your son to Uncle SAM as a gift, to use in his civil service, isn't Mr. JENCKES's bill designed as a means of looking into your son's mouth? Maybe it's to find out if he's a public cribber. What I want to know is, does this ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... farthing extra taxation, nor anyone being any worse off than formerly, by the practice of economy."[368] To pension all workers at fifty would cost about 100,000,000l. a year, and I think it would be very difficult to save that amount on a budget of 140,000,000l. unless army, navy, and civil service were abolished. Mr. Morrison Davidson is neither satisfied with a pension of 7s. 6d. a week nor with the pensionable ages of sixty, fifty-five, or even of fifty. He proposes, therefore, that "Superannuation on full pay will take place ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... attempts to unify my life. I would serve the empire. That should be my total significance. There was a Roman touch, I perceive, in this devotion. Just how or where I should serve the empire I had not as yet determined. At times I thought of the civil service, in my more ambitious moments I turned my thoughts to politics. But it was doubtful whether my private expectations made ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... "In England, civil service is open to them; and though it does not correspond of course with our law, still the same strict education is needed ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... centralization or decentralization of authority; about what may be expected, in a given case, from a restriction or extension of the franchise; about the creation and maintenance of a military establishment and the building up of an efficient civil service. The economist may be a monster of learning and a master in ingenuity on all problems touching the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... second summer vac in France, partly because my mother was not well, and also because an old scheme for improving my French had been revived. When Fred and I had gone to Oxford there had been some idea of us trying for the Indian Civil Service, but for various reasons this was abandoned, and although Fred had determined that he would go back to Cliborough as a master if he could manage it, I had drifted through two years without having made up my mind what was to happen to me when I got my degree. The Bishop wanted me to be a clergyman, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... only daughter. But dear Jane has a brother. Dear Harold! In the Civil Service. Sandy, dear, will you pour ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne

... Paris, January 1, 1834. His father was Leon Halevy, the celebrated author; his grandfather, Fromenthal, the eminent composer. Ludovic was destined for the civil service, and, after finishing his studies, entered successively the Department of State (1852); the Algerian Department (1858), and later on became editorial secretary of the Corps Legislatif (1860). When his patron, the Duc de Morny, died in 1865, Halevy resigned, ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy

... from eleven till five," said Brooke. "A hard stepmother like the Civil Service does not allow one much chance of relief. I do get across to the club sometimes for a glass of sherry and a biscuit,—but here I am now, at any rate; and I'm very glad you have come." Then there was some talk between them about affairs at Exeter; but as ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... holidays occupied, after all, a small portion of the year, and in a few years' time they would be launching out for themselves. Hereward had an ambition to join an Indian regiment. Gurth was destined for the Civil Service. The Meads would be quite a good old place in which to spend an occasional furlough. But the girls! The girls were by no means reconciled to being sacrificed on the altar of masculine ambition. When the programme ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... time, uncle, at least no 'yellow envelopes' trouble, but I've been promised an appointment in the Civil Service, and I've come to you for the 'slap on the back' that makes a fellow stiff when he's in there. Now you know it's all right for a petty clerk in those solemn Parliament Buildings, when he has an uncle that is precious to the government, for the thousands he owns and that ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... heard daily, assigning her to domestic duties and the family. The phrase is heard loudest there where woman endeavors to penetrate into the sphere of the so-called higher professions, as for instance, the higher departments of instruction and of the civil service, the medical or legal careers, and the pursuit of the natural sciences. The most laughable and absurd objections are fetched up, and are defended with the air of "learning." Gentlemen, who pass for learned, appeal, in this as in so many other things, to science in order to ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel



Words linked to "Civil service" :   officialdom, Whitehall, bureaucratism, civil servant, bureaucracy, government officials



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