REPORT.

OFFICE OF CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION,

ALBANY, March 7, 1888.

To His Excellency the Governor of the State of New York:

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SIR. The undersigned, Civil Service Commissioners, have the honor to report, that they assumed the duties of their office on December 29, 1887, about the period when the annual report of the operations of the commission for the year should have been ready for transmission.

The commission have no information of the transactions of the board for the year 1887, other than is contained in the minutes of the secretary of the commission and the records of the office.

Reports from the chief examiner, local boards and mayors of cities have been received, from which the commission has been able to compile the principal results of the work done during the year, the substance of which is embodied in the following pages:

Competitive examinations, under the auspices of the commission, have been held during the year on fifteen different occasions, and at sixteen different places. The number of applicants appearing for examination has been 384, being 148 more than the highest number in any preceding year.

The positions for which competitive examinations have been held include, first, second and third grade clerkships (in which clerkships are embraced the subdivisions of stenographers, typewriters, book-keepers, etc.), positions as messengers, guards and keepers in the State prisons, reformatory guards, collectors of canal statistics, clerks to collectors of canal statistics, assistant examiners for the Board of Regents, temporary assistant examiners for the same board, assistant engineers, levelers and rodmen in the department of the State Engineer, principal of the literary department at the Batavia Institution for the Blind, female piano. teacher at the same institution, accountants and expert in rail

road accounting, engrossing clerk for New York board of excise, and proof-readers.

For the most part these examinations have been successful in furnishing an adequate number of competent candidates for the positions to be filled, although this has not been the case in all instances. The examinations in detail, have been as follows:

On the fifteenth of January examination number one was held, for permanent assistant examiners in the office of the Board of Regents. Six candidates appeared at this examination who were marked in two different grades as follows:

Result of Examination at Albany, January 15, 1887, for Assistant Examiners in the Office of the Board of Regents.

The nature of this work is such that it must be done speedily and at stated intervals. The ordinary force of the Regents' office is not adequate for the purpose of properly completing it, within the period required, and persons must be temporarily engaged from time to time to assist those regularly employed. To obtain an eligible list from which such persons could be selected, an examination, the thirteenth for the year, was held at the office of the commission in Albany, December 15, 1887, at which nineteen competitors appeared, one of whom retired without completing any paper. The examination was continued through that and the next day, and through part of the seventeenth, the twentieth and the twenty-first. The papers used were prepared and marked by Mr. Cole, of the general examining board, with the assistance of Profes

sors Charles A. Horne, George H. Benjamin, John E. Sherwood, P. H. McQuade, O. D. Robinson and A. F. Onderdonk, and the examination resulted as will appear by the following table:

Result of Examination at Albany, December 15 to 21, 1887, for Temporary Examiners for the Board of Regents.

Each applicant was permitted to take one or any number of the stated subjects at his or her option, and the examination in this instance was in each case confined strictly to the subjects respectively under consideration.

The second examination for the year was for guards and keepers in the State prisons and was held by Col. Morrison, in connection with the local board at Dannemora, on the thirty-first day of May. Eighteen candidates appeared, of whom one did not complete the examination.

Result of Examination at Dannemora, May 31, 1887, for Guards and Keepers in the State Prisons.

Another examination (No. 6) also for keepers and guards, was held at Auburn on the twenty-second of July. Eighty-one candidates appeared at this examination, of whom two did not wholly complete it, and one failed to present satisfactory credentials as to character and disposition. The result of the examination was as follows:

Result of Examination at Auburn, July 22, 1887, for Guards and Keepers in the State Prisons.

Two competitive examinations for guards at the Elmira Reformatory were held during the year. The first (No. 5), was held at the reformatory on the twentieth of July. Twenty-eight candidates appeared at this examination, of whom three failed to com