Paymaster

“ The money appropriated by parliament for the various services of the country is placed by order of the Treasury to the account of the paymaster general, and a communication to that effect made to the comptroller and auditor-general. The paymaster-general then makes all payments required by the various departments in accordance with the parliamentary vote. The duties of the office are carried out by a permanent staff, headed by an assistant paymaster-general, acting on powers granted by the paymaster-general. ”

“ Where there is no bank convenient to the post and the men receive their money from a paymaster, he will sometimes agree to bring with him an amount of change sufficient for the needs of the Post Exchange, but if there is a bank available, we should hesitate before imposing upon the good nature of the paymaster to this extent. It is a great convenience to the men to have their ten dollar bills “changed”, and no Post Exchange should demur when the men offer such bills in payment of their debts. ”

“ Hall's appointment as paymaster was complete when his appointment was duly made by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The giving of the bond was a mere ministerial act for the security of the government, and not a condition precedent to his authority to act as paymaster. Having received the public moneys as paymaster, he must account for them as paymaster.'
The doctrine announced in that case was reaffirmed in United States v. Linn, 15 Pet. 290, 313, 10 L. ed. 742, 751, which was an action upon a writing obligatory given by a receiver of public moneys in a certain land office. ”

“ In the U. S. service it is the duty of paymasters to pay all the regular and other troops; and to insure punctuality and responsibility, correct reports shall be made to the paymaster-general once in two months, showing the disposition of the funds previously transmitted, with accurate estimates for the next payment of such regiment, garrison, or department, as may be assigned to each. In the British service a paymaster is attached to each regiment.
Paymaster-Sergeant. In the English army, a non-commissioned officer who assists the paymaster. ”

“ The words of the bond are, to account 'according to law.' This is in effect a conformity to the statute. In truth, all the duties required of the officer come within the words 'regularly account, well and truly execute, and faithfully discharge.'
The duties of a paymaster are included in the bond, and no more than these duties; and to this extent the sureties are bound. The subjection of a paymaster to the rules and articles of war, are liabilities for which the sureties are not answerable; they are responsible for his duties only. ”

“ Remember this proverb, that the good paymaster is lord of another man’s purse, for he who is known to pay punctually and exactly at the time he promises, may, at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friend can spare. ”

“ On the contrary, when an American officer wishes29 to buy anything for the government, he is obliged to have its value decided upon by a board, and then the payment is made through the tortuous channels of the paymaster’s department. ”

“ He could think closer than most men, but not quicker, and the Paymaster was a tangled affair.
“I have been told,” he began at last, “that you are still buying Paymaster stock. Or at least–well, a check of yours came through here endorsed by Death Valley Charley, and Virginia Huff. Oh, yes, yes; that’s your business, of course; but here’s the point I’m coming to; it won’t do you any good to buy in that stock because I’ve got a majority of it right here in my vault. If you want to control the Paymaster, don’t go to someone else–I’m the man you want to see.” ”

“ Provided, the marshal shall have had ten days’ notice of such motion. And should it happen in any case, during the pendency of proceedings and before payment is made by the marshal, that the paymaster in whose name the proceedings are going on, should be removed from his office or station, it shall not abate or in any manner interrupt or affect the proceedings, but the name of the succeeding paymaster may be substituted until the proceedings are formally closed. ”

“ The result of this confidence is ordinarily most satisfactory to both parties: the workman's manual labour is relieved by the sense of independence, and is elevated by the exercise of thought; while the paymaster attends to his ordinary affairs during the progress of the undertaking, and in the end gets his money's worth as in any ordinary mercantile transaction. ”

“ The Paymaster General, may be considered as a channel of conveyance, through which money passes from the treasury to the army, and as he is subjected to the law military, the Minister of Finance needs no other authority over him and his officers, than the power of putting under arrest and suspending for mal-conduct in office. ”

“ The auditor of disbursements has supervision of all expenditures of money, which is only paid out by the paymaster or treasurer upon vouchers and pay-rolls approved by proper authority. The vouchers and pay-rolls then form the grist upon which his office works, and from which are produced the credits to be given all officers and agents who disburse money, and the classified records of expenses, and comparison of the same with previous months and years, and between different divisions. ”

“ The American government provides that the paymaster shall take charge of any funds that the men do not wish to draw, and it pays a high rate of interest on these deposits. Thus, large numbers of our men have saved several thousand dollars out of their pay, and yet have lived well and had money to spend all the time. ”

“ The medical officers were drawing corks and tasting wines and inspecting provisions, when they should have been by the bedside. The purveyor was counting the soldiers' money, and noting its amount, when he should have been marketing, or ordering the giving out of the provisions for the day. The paymaster could scarcely find time to discharge the bills, so much was his day filled up with doing eternal sums about the stoppages in the pay of the patients. ”

“ All monies, for the ordinary services of the army, are obtained by the means of bills drawn by the deputy paymaster abroad on the paymaster general, which bills are negociated by the commissary general, who is obliged to note the rate of exchange on the bill. ”

“ INVESTMENT & REMITTANCE OF MONEY.—It may be well for the young officer to know that when he has any spare cash he can at any time and without trouble deposit it through the paymaster in the Government Treasury, where it will accumulate by interest without risk of bankruptcy ”

“ If the Paymaster to the Treasurer of the Navy has his salary raised, will not the Commissioners of Victualling and Transport Boards, whose duties are so constant and laborious, especially the former, have a claim to a similar advance? ”

“ I asked the company sergeant-major.
“No more prisoners, sir,” he answered. I then 230 rather hurriedly signed several returns made out by Sergeant Roberts, the company quartermaster-sergeant, and promised to come in later and sign the acquittance rolls. These are the pay-lists, made out in triplicate, which are signed by each man as he draws his pay. The original goes to the Paymaster in England, one carbon copy to the adjutant, and one is retained by the company-commander. We had paid out the first day in billets. This time “working-parties” had been tolerable. ”

“ My acquainting them that the money was ready in the paymaster's hands, but that orders for paying it must first be obtained from General Shirley, and my assuring them that I had applied to that general by letter, but, he being at a distance, an answer could not soon be received, and they must have patience,—all this was not sufficient to satisfy, and some began to sue me. General Shirley at length relieved me from this terrible situation by appointing commissioners to examine the claims, and ordering payment. They amounted to near twenty thousand pounds, which to pay would have ruined me. ”

“ They protested against permitting the traders to sit at the pay table of the government paymaster and deduct from their small annuities the amount due them. They had at least one white man's idea—they wanted to pay their debts when they got ready. ”

“ All these treasurers or paymasters were subject to their several comptrollers of accounts, and their issues, &c. were audited accordingly. There were likewise provincial or subordinate paymasters of the extraordinaries of the army. They were appointed by the treasurers or paymasters-general, and resided in the different departments and general districts of the kingdom. These appointments fell, of course, at the revolution, and they have since been replaced by a more simple and economical consolidation. The artillery has still its separate treasurer or paymaster. ”

“ That paymasters belong to the staff of the army; and all officers of the staff who receive the pay of major, are allowed cavalry pay. That there was a strong analogy between deputy quartermasters and paymasters, both being of the staff and disbursing officers, which raised a fair and strong presumption that congress intended paymasters should receive the same pay and emoluments as deputy quartermasters, or majors of the staff. ”

“ That no payment should be made by the military officer belonging to any department (such as quarter, or barrack master general, inspector of hospitals, commanding engineers, &c.) but that every expence should be paid by the deputy paymasters general, in pursuance of a warrant from the commander in chief. 3. That all vouchers, proving any payment, should be subject to a careful and speedy examination by persons appointed for the purpose, on the spot where the expence was incurred. ”

“ The mere statement of a bank cashier or a teller, that the money he spends so lavishly for luxuries far out of the reach of his salary comes from his wife’s private fortune, ought not to be accepted as an all-sufficient reason for his extravagance. The bank’s executive should know whether it is true or false; it should be known beyond any possible doubt just what money he is488 spending. If a cashier or a teller objects to so severe a scrutiny of his affairs, the wisest thing in that case is to declare a vacancy, and fill it with a man whose life is not weighted by secrets. ”

“ The mode of paying wages, or at least of conveying the wages from head-quarters, is this. In order to guard against robbery or fraud, a list of all the porters, engine-drivers, guards, and other servants who belong to or are allotted to each station for payment, is sent up to head-quarters. On a given day—say Friday or Saturday—this list is taken back to the station by a clerk from the cashier or secretary’s office, who also takes with him the sum required to pay all these servants their wages. ”

“ Inadequacy of pay arising to some extent from stagnation in promotion.
“2. The excessive amount of overtime, the small rate of pay allowed for it, and the severity of the night duty. The [184] inadequacy of pay referred to in the first point was redressed by a new classification and scale of wages, which was to be uniform for the postal staff of the Sorting Branch and for the telegraphists (vide Treasury reply) , and which was ‘based upon the intelligible principle of paying for work solely according to its quality’ (vide Mr. Fawcett’s report to the Treasury) .” ”

“ If Bismarck had earned only his salary, he might have remained a perpetual clerk, and Germany a tangle of petty states.
I have never known an employee to rise rapidly, or even to get beyond mediocrity, whose pay envelope was his goal, who could not see infinitely more in his work than what he found in the envelope on Saturday night. That is necessity; but the larger part of the real pay of a real man's work is outside of the pay envelope. ”

“ The custom of keeping the spare cash reserved for immediate use or against contingent demands, in the hands of a banker, and making all payments, except small ones, by orders on bankers, is in this country spreading to a continually larger portion of the public. If the person making the payment, and the person receiving it, keep their money with the same banker, the payment takes place without any intervention of money, by the mere transfer of its amount in the banker's books from the credit of the payer to that of the receiver. ”

“ Every once in a while we lose a good man from the service because he is hard pressed and can raise money only by taking his time check.
The monthly payroll was adopted before bonding and surety companies revolutionized business methods. The theory is that the roll must be approved and audited before payment in order to insure accuracy and prevent fraud. Did you ever hear of a payroll being disapproved as such? No matter how unwise their employment, how injudicious the time put in, the men must be paid. We are under moral and legal obligations to pay for service performed. ”

“ The service of the safekeeping of money naturally leads to the second, the making of payments. When we intrust our means of payment to a bank, it is natural that we should also make it our treasurer and disbursing agent, and so we do. If we have payments to make to people at home, in other cities of our own country, or in other countries, we usually order our bank to perform the service for us. ”

“ But, sir, the punctuality of the payment has produced of late great inconveniencies; for there has been frequently a necessity of removing men from one ship to another; and it is the stated rule of the pay-office, to assign every man so removed his full pay. These men, when the government is no longer indebted to them, take the first opportunity of deserting the service, and engaging in business to which they are more inclined. ”