granted to Mr Thornton of the Barber Master's department. Your Lordship thinks I ought not to have granted him ten months leave, or have given him any passage allowance, which it is admitted, he could not have claimed without eleven months and fifteen days.
2.
Under the circumstances, Your Lordship very naturally remarks that if the Rule regulating such allowances is to be relaxed, it should not be in favor of Officers whose services are the reverse of meritorious. There can be no doubt as to the correctness of that view, provided no other considerations be involved than how to apply the strict letter of the Rule to every case, whereas other considerations do practically often thrust themselves forward irrepressibly.
3.
This, I respectfully suggest, is one of those cases where the feverish heat and temptations of the climate here, with its depressing effect after long residence, and the great distance of the Colony from Europe, which renders it a matter of much expense and difficulty for a person in narrow circumstances to make his way back, are reasons for dealing somewhat tenderly with those members of the Civil Service.
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